I'm sure some Tolkien fanboy here will know the exact answer to this question, so since it has been inexplicably rattling around in my head all day I'll ask it.

How old is Gandalf? I recall in the recent Two Towers movie, he makes a comment something like "for 300 lives of men I have walked the earth." But what exactly does that equate to? If we were to take a typical medieval lifespan to be 30 years, that'd make Gandalf about 900 years old. If we assume a modern lifespan of about 80 years, that makes him 2400 years old. But it is my understanding that the men who lived before the fall of Numenor were quite long lived, and those still with strong Numenorian blood such as Aragorn lived quite a long time--I believe Aragorn lived to be 300 or so, if I'm not mistaken. So if the "average" lifespan of a Numenorian is 300 years, that makes Gandalf 9,000 years old.

And of course, this is all assuming Peter Jackson didn't just make that line up. So what is it, fanboys/girls. How old is Gandalf?

-- Dave