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'Mount Ida',
Turkish 'Kazdağı' (pronounced , with a meaning of "Goose Mountain"
[1]), 'Kaz Dağları', or 'Karataş Tepesi', is a mountain in northwestern
Turkey, southeast of the
ruins of
Troy, along the north coast of the
Gulf of Edremit. The name,
Mount Ida, is the ancient one.
Geography
Mount Ida is lightly populated upland massif of about 700 km² located to the north of
Edremit. A number of small villages in the region are connected by paths. Drainage is mainly to the south, into the
Gulf of Edremit, also known as Edremit Bay, where the coast is rugged and is known as "the Olive Riviera.". However, the Küçük Menderes River (the ancient
Scamander) flows from the other side of Mount Ida to the west. Its valley under Kaz Dağları has been called "the Vale of Troy" by English speakers.
[2]
Currently a modest 2.4 km² of Mount Ida are protected by Kaz Dağı National Park, created in 1993.
The summit is windswept and bare with a relatively low
tree line due to exposure, but the slopes of this mountain, at the edge of mild Mediterranean and colder central Anatolian climate zones, hold a wealth of endemic flora, marooned here after the Ice Age. The climate at lower altitudes has become increasingly hot and dry in the deforested landscape. The dry period lasts from May to October. Rainfall averages between 631 and 733 mm per year. The mean annual temperature is 15.7 degrees C, with diurnal temperatures as high as 43.7 degrees C in
Edremit.
The forests on the upper slopes consist mainly of
Turkish Fir (''Abies nordmanniana'' subsp. ''equi-trojani''; considered by some botanists to be a distinct species ''Abies equi-trojani'').
Legend
Cultic significance
Cybele
In ancient times, the mountain was dedicated to the worship of
Cybele, who at Rome therefore was given the
epithet ''Idaea Mater''.
Sibylline books
The oldest collection of Sibylline utterances, the
Sibylline books, appears to have been made about the time of Cyrus at Gergis on Mount Ida; it was attributed to the Hellespontine
Sibyl and was preserved in the temple of Apollo at Gergis. From Gergis the collection passed to Erythrae, where it became famous as the oracles of the
Erythraean Sibyl. It seems to have been this very collection, or so it would appear, which found its way to Cumae (see the
Cumaean Sibyl) and from Cumae to Rome.
Mythology
Idaea
Idaea was a
nymph, mate of the river god
Scamander, and mother of
King Teucer the
Trojan king. The Scamander River flowed from Mount Ida across the plain beneath the city of Troy, and joined the
Hellespont north of the city.
Ganymede
At an earlier time, on Mount Ida,
Ganymede, the son of
Tros or perhaps of
Laomedon, both kings of Troy, was desired by
Zeus, who descended in the form of an eagle and swept up Ganymede, to be cupbearer to the Olympian gods.
Paris
On the sacred mountain, the nymphs who were the daughter-spirits of the river
Cebrenus, had their haunt, and one,
Oenone, who had the chthonic gifts of prophetic vision and the curative powers of herb magic, wed
Paris, living as a shepherd on Mount Ida. Unbeknownst to all, even to himself, Paris was the son of Priam, king of Troy. He was there on Mount Ida, experiencing the rustic education in exile of many heroes of
Greek mythology, for his disastrous future effect on Troy was foretold at his birth, and Priam had him
exposed on the sacred slopes. When the good shepherd who was entrusted with the baby returned to bury the exposed child, he discovered that he had been suckled by a she-bear (a totem animal of the archaic goddess
Artemis) and took the child home to be foster-nursed by his wife.
When
Eris ("discord") cast the Apple of Discord, inscribed "for the fairest", into the wedding festivities of
Peleus with
Thetis, three great goddesses repaired to Mount Ida to be appraised. By a sacred spring on the mountainside, in "the
Judgment of Paris", the grown youth Paris awarded it to
Aphrodite, who offered
Helen for a bribe, earning the perpetual enmity of the discredited goddesses
Hera and
Athena to the
Trojan cause (
Apollodorus, 3:12.5).
Anchises
Anchises, father of
Aeneas, also of the Trojan royal house, was tending sheep on Mount Ida when he was seduced by Aphrodite.
Trojan War
The mountain is the scene of several mythic events in the works of
Homer. At its summit, the Olympian gods gathered to watch the progress of the epic fight. But the mountain was the sacred place of the Goddess, and Hera's powers were so magnified on Mount Ida, that she was able to distract Zeus with her seductions, just long enough to permit the climactic taking of Troy.
During the
Trojan War, in an episode recorded in
Apollodorus's ''Epitome'', Achilles with some of the Achaean chiefs laid waste the countryside, and made his way to Ida to rustle the cattle of Aeneas. But Aeneas fled, and Achilles killed the cowherds and Nestor, son of Priam, and drove away the sacred kine (''Epitome'' 3.32). Achilles briefly refers to this incident as he prepares to duel with Aeneas during the siege of Troy. (''Iliad'' XX)
After the Trojan War, the only surviving son of Priam,
Helenus, retired to Mount Ida, where he was surprised and became the captive of
Neoptolemus.
History
Bronze age
In the
Bronze Age, the region around the mountain complex had a somewhat checquered ethnography. There is evidence for the following peoples with a reasonable degree of probability:
★ The
Tjeker in
Ayvacık, Çanakkale Province, which the Greeks called the Teucri. They were probably from Crete and are most likely to have been the source of the name, Mount Ida, which they took from
Mount Ida, Crete.
Iron age
In historical times,
Xerxes I' march took him past Mount Ida (Herodotus VII:42).
Notes
1. This etymology is given by Tanıtkan in the article referenced by the link below.
2. A term from the play, ''Friar Bacon'', Line 412, by the Elizabethan playwright, Robert Greene, 1560-1592. This information comes from an untitled book review by Robert Adger Law in Modern Language Notes, Vol. 22, No. 6 (Jun., 1907), pp. 197-199
References
★ Martyn Rix, "Wild About Ida: the glorious flora of Kaz Dagi and the Vale of Troy", ''Cornucopia'' 26, 2002.
See also
★
Edremit
External links
★
Live Search gives a clickable 2-D or 3-D map of the region based on aerial photography.
★ ''
Kaz Dağı: The magic mountain'', article by Recep Peker Tanıtkan in Diplomat magazine, Ankara, May, 2006.
★
Morphological, Anatomical and Ecological studies on the two Turkish endemic species collected from Kaz Dağı (B1 Balıkesir) “Allium sibthorpianum Schultes & Schultes fil. and Allium reuterianum Boiss.â€, article by Ä°smet Uysal in the Turkish Journal of Journal of Botany, 23 (1999), 137–148.
★ ''
A Contribution to the Moss Flora of Western Turkey: Moss Flora of the Kaz Mountain (Balıkesir, Turkey)'', article by Adnan Erdag and Ahmet Yayıntaş in the Turkish Journal of Botany, 23 (1999), 117–125.
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