Keys of Orthanc

Two great keys, black and intricate in shape and fastened together on a steel ring, opened the doors of Orthanc, and nothing else did. The tower itself went up between the years 3320 and 3430 of the Second Age, and its doors and their keys were presumably made as the work was finished. Calenardhon emptied of people through the early centuries of the Stewards, Orthanc was left deserted, and once it had been locked the keys were carried to Minas Tirith and kept there. Rohan was founded in the land around it in 2510, while Gondor held Isengard still with a small troop under a hereditary captain. The Stewards kept the keys but let their attention turn east. In 2759, after Dunlending raiders had been starved out of Isengard by the famine that followed the Long Winter, the Steward Beren gave the key of Orthanc to Saruman, who had offered to hold the tower on Gondor's behalf.