The Years of the Lamps
There are two actual ways of measuring the time of Arda’s history, split between the holy society of the Ainur’s reckonings and those of Arda’s own mortal races. The Years of the Lamps were the first to be measured in Valian years, but in what we would understand as a traditional year—by charting the passage of the planet around the sun, which, for the record, does not exist yet on Arda—the Years of the Lamps is a period that lasts around 15,000 years. It’s named for the two sources of light that the Valar create when they first arrive on Arda’s surface, finding a completely flat, totally symmetrical swathe of land. Collecting the light found on Arda, the Valar forged two lamps in the North and South, atop massive towers; llluin, in the north, and Ormal, in the south, while the Valar themselves established their home in the very center of Arda, to exist in the farthest light of both lamps, on the island of Almaren.
The Years of the Lamps ends when, after building his own fortresses and gathering power, Melkor assaulted Almaren and the two lamps, destroying their towers so they would plummet to Arda. The damage was catastrophic, sundering what was once a singular landmass into four continents: Aman, Middle-Earth (or Endor as it was first known), the Land of Sun, and the Land of Dark.
