Locations in The Tombs of Atuan

Locations in The Tombs of Atuan:
Atuan

Also known as: Holy Land

Island of the Kargad Lands, west of Karego-At; location of the Tombs of Atuan. Major cities are Tenacbah and Gar; other towns include Entat (and possibly Ossawa); other features include the Western Mountains and Cloud Cape. An island of contrasts: relatively fertile hill country lies in the north, and lowland plains with grassland, farms & pine forests lie on the west coast; however, the interior is desert, and barren plains are found in the east

Archipelago

Also known as: Western Isles, Hardic lands

All islands of Earthsea outside the eastern Kargad Lands; sometimes the four Reaches are also excluded

"…there are many islands. Four times forty, they say, in the Archipelago alone, and then there are the Reaches; no man has ever sailed all the Reaches, nor counted all the lands. And each is different from the others."

[The Great Treasure, ToA]

Awabath

Titles: the Sacred City, the Holy City

City on Karego-At, fifty miles from Hupun. Originally the centre of the worship of the Twin Gods. After the rise of the Priest-Kings in around 440, capital of the Kargad Lands, and eventually seat of theGodking

Sources: The Wall around the Place, ToA

Bay of Havnor

Also known as: Great Bay of Havnor, Havnor Bay

Huge calm bay in the south of Havnor Island, fed by the Onneva river and reached from the Ebavnor Straits via natural portals named the Gates of the Bay. The huge port of Havnor City lies at its north-east

…the bay that lies locked in the heart of Havnor…

[Voyage, ToA]

Big House

House in the Place of the Tombs on Atuan where the lesser priestesses and novices live. Stone built, it contains a narrow refectory, long low-beamed dormitories, attic weaving room, workrooms, kitchens, cellars and store rooms, and a courtyard with water cisterns and a well. The cellar beneath the kitchens has a concealed spyhole to the Labyrinth

 Cloud Cape

Rocky headland on the west coast of Atuan; it has cliffs above a sandy beach, a narrow cave 30 feet long just above the high water level, and a freshwater stream

 Entat

Town in the northern hill country of Atuan, with orchard vales to the west

 Gar

City of the island of Atuan, to the north west of the Tombs of Atuan

 Hall of the Throne

Ancient and semi-derelict temple of the Nameless Ones at the Place of the Tombs on Atuan; a vast low hall with a crumbling dome. The Throne Room has double rows of columns and a huge black jewelled throne, the Empty Throne, on a high platform of red-veined marble. Behind lies a warren of small rooms, including storerooms, treasure rooms, robing rooms, attics & basements; one cell contains a trapdoor, the only exit from the Labyrinth; another has a small trapdoor to the Room of Chains within a minor labyrinth off the Undertomb which lies beneath the Hall of the Throne. The oldest temple in the Kargad Lands, it is destroyed when Ged & Tenar escape from the Labyrinth with the Ring of Erreth-Akbe

'''Through cracks in the roof of the Hall of the Throne, gaps between columns where a whole section of masonry and tile had collapsed, unsteady sunshine shone aslant. … Dead leaves of weeds that had forced up between marble pavement-tiles were outlined with frost, and crackled, catching on the long black robes of the priestesses.' ''' '…the altars, the alcoves behind and beneath the altars, the rooms of chests and boxes, the contents of the chests and boxes, the passages and attics, the dusty hollow under the dome where hundreds of bats nested, the basements and underbasements that were the anterooms of the corridors of darkness.  ' 

[The Eaten One, ToA/Light under the Hill, ToA]

 Hill of the Tombs

Hill within the Place of the Tombs on Atuan, on which the Hall of the Throne and the Tombs of Atuan are set. The crest of the hill is encircled with a massive rock wall, the Tomb Wall

 Hur-at-Hur

Largest and easternmost island of the Kargad Lands, part desert, part forested, mountainous and relatively impoverished; the inhabitants are considered barbarians by people of Atuan. Major town is called Mesreth. Produce includes opals, turquoises and cedar logs. Well-born women are segregated in women's quarters and wear the feyag (veil), which is not worn on Atuan or in Awabath. Small flightless dragons live in the mountains. Ruled by the Godking at Awabath on Karego-At, and by local warlords. Around ten years after the restoration of the Archipelagan monarchy, a warlord, Thol, consolidates power to become High King after deposing the Godking

 Kargad Lands

Also known as: Eastern Isles, Kargad Empire, the Four Lands, Empire of the Sky

Four islands in the north-east: Karego-At, Atuan, Hur-at-Hur and Atnini, which do not form part of the Archipelago. Awabath on Karego-At is the capital. The white-skinned inhabitants, Kargs, are ruled by the Godking and, after civil war in around 1061, the High King. They have a very different culture, religion and language (Kargish), from the rest of Earthsea, with magic and writing being outlawed. The Kargad islands have few mineral resources

 Labyrinth

An extensive maze of tunnels under the Place of the Tombs with a network of spyholes; the Labyrinth guards the treasures of the Tombs of Atuan, trapping any who try to steal them. Believed to be ancient, the Labyrinth's origins are unknown. It contains the mural-decorated Painted Room, Room of Bones, Six Ways, the long Outmost Tunnel by the river, and, in its heart, guarded by a pit, the Great Treasury of the Tombs. Less sacred than the Undertomb, which it adjoins, the Labyrinth can only be accessed via the Undertomb by an iron door, which can be sealed via a lever on the Undertomb side. Unlike the Undertomb, light is permitted within the Labyrinth, but there are no landmarks; the greyish-yellow stone-lined tunnels are all alike, about five feet wide by twelve to fifteen feet high with a vaulted roof. The maze extends from the Hall of the Throne to the river half a mile away, but the distance underground is many times greater, about twenty miles in total. No map exists; the only way of negotiating the maze is to remember turnings taken and passed; these instructions are passed from priestess to priestess without ever being written down. The Labyrinth is at least partially demolished by an earthquake when Ged and Tenar escape with the Ring of Erreth-Akbe

'''There was a weariness in that tracing of the vast, meaningless web of ways; the legs got tired and the mind got bored, forever reckoning up the turnings and the passages behind and to come. It was wonderful, laid out in the solid rock underground like the streets of a great city; but it had been made to weary and confuse the mortal walking in it, and even its priestess must feel it to be nothing, in the end, but a great trap.'' '

[Light under the Hill, ToA]

 Ossawa

Town in the Kargad Lands, possibly on Atuan. It has a minor temple to the Godking

 Painted Room

Also known as:  Room of Pictures

Mural-decorated room in the Labyrinth on Atuan. The murals depict bird-winged, flightless figures with eyes painted dull red and whitea, which may represent non-reincarnated spirits of Archipelagan people trapped in the sterile afterlife of the dry land. The date at which they were painted is unknown, as is the artist/s. No similar paintings are found elsewhere in the Place of the Tombs. The room has a door with iron bolts and a large spy hole in its arched roof, located in the treasury of the Temple of the God-Brothers

'''[Arha] was going to the Painted Room. She liked sometimes to go there and study the strange wall drawings that leapt out of the dark at the gleam of her candle: men with long wings and great eyes, serene and morose. No one could tell her what they were, there were no such paintings elsewhere in the Place, but she thought she knew; they were the spirits of the damned, who are not reborn.'' '

[Light under the Hill, ToA]

Place of the Tombs

Also known as: Place, the, Place of Atuan Titles: Most Sacred Place of the Tombs

Sacred place in the interior of the island of Atuan where the Tombs of Atuan and Hall of the Throne are located, as well as the Temple of the Godking, Temple of the God-Brothers, Small House, Big House, accommodations for eunuch wardens, slaves & guards, farm buildings, store rooms, stables, barn, goat pens, sheep folds & apple/peach orchard. Around 200 people live there. Set in the desert, half a mile from a river, hemmed in by the Western Mountains and two days' walk from the coast; the nearest town is over 20 miles away. Though it's the oldest and most holy place in the Kargad Lands, by the time of The Tombs of Atuan, few pilgrims visit and the Godking no longer consults the One Priestess

It looked like a little town, seen from a distance, from up on the dry hills westward where nothing grew but sage, wire-grass in straggling clumps, small weeds and desert herbs.

[The Wall around the Place, ToA]

 Red rock door

Also known as: Prisoners' Door

Door to the Undertomb at the Place of the Tombs on Atuan, in an outcropping of red lava near the Tomb Wall. It can only be opened from outside, using a long-shafted iron key with two ornate wards (one of the ring of keys)

'''A few yards down the slope an outcropping of red lava made a stair or little cliff in the hill. When she went down to it and stood on the level before it, facing the rocks, Arha realized that they looked like a rough doorway, four feet high.'''

[The Prisoners, ToA]

 Small House

Also known as: House of the One Priestess

House in which the One Priestess lives after dedication, in the Place of the Tombs on Atuan. It has a windowless sleeping cell, hallway, an inner walled courtyard with a cistern, a porch where the One Priestess's eunuch sleeps, and a small closet with a concealed spyhole onto the Labyrinth, near the iron door

'''It was in a house that had been locked for years, unlocked only that day. The room was higher than it was long, and had no windows. There was a dead smell in it, still and stale.'' '

[The Eaten One, ToA]

 Temple of the God-Brothers

Also known as: God-Brothers, Temple of the, Temple of the Twin Gods

Temple to the Twin Gods on Atuan, set on a little knoll in the Place of the Tombs. A windowless cube of white plastered stone, with a newly gilted roof and a low porch, it is centuries older than theTemple of the Godking, but much more recent than the Hall of the Throne. Its little vaulted treasury has a large concealed spyhole onto the Painted Room of the Labyrinth

Temple of the Godking

Also known as: Godking, Temple of the

Temple to the Godking on Atuan. The newest and showiest temple in the Place of the Tombs, it has a high portico and thick white columns of solid cedar logs with carved & painted capitals. At the rear are accommodations for the High Priestess serving the Godking.

There is also a minor temple to the Godking in Ossawa

Tenacbah

Major city of the island of Atuan, to the north west of the Tombs of Atuan; said to have a thousand houses

'''And first we went to Tenacbah, which is a great city, though those who've seen both say it's no more to Awabath than a flea to a cow. But it's big enough for me, there must be ten hundred houses in Tenacbah!'''

[The Wall Around the Place, ToA]

Tomb Wall

Ancient mortarless stone wall behind the Hall of the Throne and encircling the summit of the Hill of the Tombs; it completely surrounds the Tombs of Atuan. Originally three times the height of a person, by the time of The Tombs of Atuan it has partly fallen down in several places

'''The rocks it was built of were massive; the least of them would outweigh a man, and the largest were big as wagons. Though unshapen they were carefully fitted and interlocked. Yet in places the height of the wall had slipped down and the rocks lay in a shapeless heap.'''

[The Prisoners, ToA]

Tombs of Atuan

Also known as: Tombstones, Place of the Old Powers

Nine black stones, eighteen to twenty feet high, behind the Hall of the Throne, within an encircling wall, the Tomb Wall. Sacred to the Nameless Ones, they are said to have stood there since the creation of Earthsea. The name also encompasses the Undertomb beneath the Tombstones, where the power of the Nameless Ones is at its strongest. The Tombstones fall into the Undertomb in the earthquakethat follows Ged and Tenar's escape from the Labyrinth with the Ring of Erreth-Akbe

'''Inside the loop of the wall several black stones eighteen or twenty feet high stuck up like huge fingers out of the earth. Once the eye saw them it kept returning to them. They stood there full of meaning, and yet there was no saying what they meant. There were nine of them. One stood straight, the others leaned more or less, two had fallen. They were crusted with grey and orange lichen as if splotched with paint, all but one, which was naked and black with a dull black gloss to it. It was smooth to the touch, but on the others, under the crust of lichen, vague carvings could be seen, or felt with the fingers -- shapes, signs. These nine stones were the Tombs of Atuan. They had been planted in the darkness when the lands were raised up from the ocean's depths. They were older by far than the Godkings of Kargad, older than the Twin Gods, older than light. They were the tombs of those who ruled before the world of men came to be, the ones not named, and she who served them had no name.'''

[The Wall around the Place, ToA]

Treasury of the Tombs

Also known as: Great Treasury of the Tombs, Great Treasury of the Tombs of Atuan, Treasury of the Tombs of Atuan, Great Treasure of the Tombs (of Atuan)

At the centre of the Labyrinth of Atuan, guarded by a pit, the treasury is a low-roofed, dusty room with rough-hewn stone walls containing six great stone chests of treasure, including half the Ring of Erreth-Akbe; Ged calls it a deathly placea. Opened by a silver key with a dragon-shaped haft (one of the ring of keys)

'''In the Great Treasury of the Tombs of Atuan, time did not pass. No light; no life; no least stir of spider in the dust or worm in the cold earth. Rock, and dark, and time not passing.'''

[The Ring of Erreth-Akbe, ToA]

Undertomb

A large natural underground cavern beneath the Tombs of Atuan, adjoining the Labyrinth. Highly sacred to the Nameless Ones, it can be accessed only via the red rock door near the Tomb Wall or by a trapdoor in one of the rooms behind the Hall of the Throne. Light is forbidden there, and only the One Priestess, the two High Priestesses and their eunuch wardens (Manan, Uahto, Duby) may enter. Gives access not only to the Labyrinth itself, but also to a minor labyrinth beneath the Hall of the Throne and the Hill of the Tombs, including the Room of Chains, which houses prisoners. The Undertomb is destroyed by an earthquake when Ged and Tenar escape from the Labyrinth with the Ring of Erreth-Akbe

'''--Saw what she had never seen, not though she had lived a hundred lives: the great vaulted cavern beneath the Tombstones, not hollowed by man's hand but by the powers of the Earth. It was jewelled with crystals and ornamented with pinnacles and filagrees of white limestone where the waters under earth had worked, eons since: immense, with glittering roof and walls, sparkling, delicate, intricate, a palace of diamonds, a house of amethyst and crystal, from which the ancient darkness had been driven out by glory.'''

[Light under the Hill, ToA]

Western Mountains

Range of tawny mountains and wide valleys in the west of Atuan, between the Place of the Tombs and the western coastal plain. A fairly arid region, the predominant vegetation is sagebrush; the summits are snow-clad in winter

Before them the western mountains stood, their feet purple, their upper slopes gold.

[The Anger of the Dark, ToA]