Its real-life story is even more impressive, dating back over 1,000 years. It has been a castle, a monastery, a village, a prison, and often several of those at a time. It has withstood many sieges, sackings, and the steady smolder of time.

To do this modern style you’d have to assemble a huge group of craftsmen, and if you skimmed the cream of the crop of masons and stone in North America you would still need generations, but if you had a ballpark of around $200 billion, you could build a full size modernly functional Minas Tirith out of marble.

The walled city from Lord of the Rings would cost about £1.85 billion ($2.9 billion) to build, including labor costs and maintenance up until the year 2053. That’s according to the architects behind the “Realise Minas Tirith” Indiegogo campaign, anyway.

In Peter Jackson’s film The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Gondor’s capital city, Minas Tirith, was modelled on Mont Saint-Michel.

The fortress of the Tower of the Sun was built to guard against the Men of the White Mountains in the year SA 3320 by the Dúnedain of Gondor, those Faithful Númenóreans who escaped the destruction of Númenor the year prior. It was at that time named Minas Anor, meaning “Tower of the Sun”.

Minas Tirith includes gates, ramps, tunnels, and passageways as they ascend the seven levels comprising the city fortress. The model is currently on display at the Ripley’s Believe It or not in Hollywood.

1) Arnor and Gondor were formed by survivors of disaster – Elendil, Isildur and Anarion. Rome was likewise founded by survivors of a disaster – Eneas, Romulus and Remus.

Michel, a fortified Catholic monastery that was built on a lonely island off the coast of northern France. The mysterious monastery was used as a primary inspiration for the city of Minas Tirith, the capital city of Gondor in Tolkien’s Middle-Earth. –> Mont St.

After the War, Aragorn (as King Elessar) counseled Faramir to make his abode in the Emyn Arnen southeast of Minas Tirith, in Ithilien, and decreed that Minas Ithil in the Morgul Vale, despoiled by its years as Minas Morgul, be completely destroyed, for ‘although it might in time come to be made clean, no man might …

Minas Tirith includes gates, ramps, tunnels, and passageways as they ascend the seven levels comprising the city fortress. The model is currently on display at the Ripley’s Believe It or not in Hollywood. The construction of Minas Tirith began April 7, 2007, and was completed February 15, 2010.

The Minas Tirith model contains hundreds of city buildings and is topped with the Citadel, the Tree of Gondor, and the White Tower of Ecthelion. The took 420,000 matchsticks to construct, and an additional 24,000 small wooden blocks that were used to construct Mount Mindolluin, which supports the huge matchstick structure.

Acton’s version of Minas Tirith is one of his biggest and most detailed matchstick models yet, as he has constructed his rendition of the tremendously ancient city that Tolkien says “appears hewn from the rock of Mount Mindolluin” in the White Mountains.