Highlights
- The oldest being in Middle-earth is a subject of speculation, with competing contenders being Tom Bombadil and Treebeard the Ent.
- Tom Bombadil is mysterious and said to be "older than old," but due to the lack of concrete information, it's hard to confirm his age.
- Treebeard, referred to as the oldest living thing in Middle-earth by Gandalf, has been around since the First Age and is estimated to be 17,000 - 25,000 years old, making him the oldest of any race.
The lore of Middle-earth extends far past the bounds of what's explored in The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien had a whole host of extended stories about the universe he had created, including its origins and a lot of information about the beings and creatures that were there from the very beginning. There are multiple characters encountered during the story that have been in Middle-earth for an incredibly long time, and some that have lived a long life even before Arda and Middle-earth themselves were created.
This has led many to wonder who the actual oldest creature in Middle-earth is. There is some speculation, and as usual, Tolkien wasn't always exactly clear about his intentions with certain parts of the lore. Some of the information even seems contradictory, but a closer look reveals a more solid answer. So who is the oldest being in Middle-earth, and how long have they been around for?
Who Is The Oldest Being In Middle Earth?
There are a few beings in Middle-earth who are still alive in the time of the Third Age who are basically ancient, and there has been some discussion around which one is truly the oldest. Even Tolkien is slightly unclear as to who it is. The one easy answer would be to say that it's Tom Bombadil, as he is a being who is entirely mysterious. No one really knows who or what he is, but it's heavily implied that he has a great amount of power and has been around for a very long time. In the books, he is called "older than old" and is also referred to in this quote: "I think that in the end, if all else is conquered, Bombadil will fall, Last as he was First".
However, since there's so little concrete information on Bombadil, it's hard to definitively claim that he is the oldest being in Middle-earth. The other contender, with some compelling evidence behind him, is none other than Treebeard the Ent. Gandalf describes Treebeard in this way: "he is the oldest of the Ents, the oldest living thing that still walks beneath the Sun upon this Middle-earth". This seems like a pretty clear indication that Treebeard is one of the oldest creatures in Middle-earth.
Since Treebeard is the oldest Ent, that would make him the oldest of any species in Middle-earth. Tom Bombadil is the only one of his kind, seemingly, which means he's not of a particular "race". With those semantics, Treebeard would be the oldest of any race, particularly because Tom Bombadil's whole deal is very ambiguous. Treebeard had been around since the First Age, which would make him somewhere between 17,000 - 25,000 years old by the time of The Lord of the Rings.
How Much Older Is Treebeard Than Gandalf?
Treebeard refers to Gandalf as "Young Master Gandalf", so he evidently perceives himself to be much older than Gandalf. But is this true? While Treebeard is definitely older than the amount of time that Gandalf has spent in Arda (around 2000 years), Gandalf himself as an entity is older than Treebeard. Gandalf was one of the Maiar, the spirits that helped the Valar shape the world and who lived in the Undying Lands.
Gandalf was originally a Maia named Olórin who was created by Ilúvatar before the Music of the Ainur. He was sent to Middle-earth in the Third Age in the form of the wizard Gandalf in order to fight the rising threat of Sauron. This would make him at least 54,000 years old, and he was technically around before the creation of Middle-earth, though not as Gandalf specifically. This means that while Treebeard is technically thousands of years older than Gandalf, Gandalf's true form still predates Treebeard's life.