Amon Hen

Amon Hen, the Hill of the Eye or the Hill of Seeing, is a hill on the western shore of the river Anduin in Middle-earth, near the falls of Rauros and the lake of Nen Hithoel, in the old borderlands of Gondor. Upon its summit stands the Seat of Seeing, a high stone chair from which, by the arts of the Men of Numenor, one might look out over great distances. Amon Hen is the place where the Fellowship of the Ring is broken at the end of the first part of the quest.

Amon Hen stands opposite its sister hill Amon Lhaw, the Hill of Hearing, on the eastern bank, the two flanking the river at the ancient seat of the kings of Gondor. Between and above them, at the head of the falls, once stood the great stone figures of the Argonath, the Pillars of the Kings.

Geography

Amon Hen rises on the western shore of the Anduin, above the lawn of Parth Galen where the Fellowship lands their boats, near the lake of Nen Hithoel and the thunder of the falls of Rauros. A worn stair climbs to its crown, where the Seat of Seeing stands within a ring of crumbling stone. From that seat, the eye is given to see far across the lands of Middle-earth, north, south, east, and west, even to the smoking peak of Mount Doom and the walls of Mordor.

In the story

At Amon Hen the Fellowship reaches a crisis. Boromir, overcome at last by the desire for the One Ring, tries to take it from Frodo. Frodo flees and climbs to the Seat of Seeing, where, wearing the Ring, he beholds the wide lands and the gathering powers and feels the Eye of Sauron turn toward him; he tears the Ring from sight and resolves to go on to Mordor alone. As he slips away with Sam, the company is scattered: orcs of Saruman and Mordor fall upon them, Merry and Pippin are seized and carried off, and Boromir, repenting, dies defending the hobbits at the foot of the hill, slain by many arrows. The breaking of the Fellowship at Amon Hen sets the three later strands of the story on their separate ways.