Erech was a hill in Gondor situated in the far north of the province of Lamedon at the mouth of the Blackroot Vale, far to the west of Minas Tirith. It lay near to the southern entrance to the Paths of the Dead. Upon the summit stood a smooth black globe, the Stone of Erech. In the Second Age, Isildur brought with him the stone as a symbol of his lineage and Gondor. He set it upon the hill of Erech and made the local hill tribes swear an oath of loyalty on the stone. The hill tribes later broke their oath and were doomed to haunt the place as the Dead Men.