Mount Ida (Crete)

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Mount Ida
Psiloritis (Timios Stavros)
Psiloritis3(js).jpg
View of Psiloritis mountains from west
Highest point
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Listing Ultra
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Geography
Mount Ida is located in Greece
Mount Ida
Mount Ida
Location in Greece
Location Crete, Greece

Mount Ida, known variously as Idha, Ídhi, Idi, Ita and now Psiloritis (Greek: Ψηλορείτης, "high mountain"), at a height of 2,456 m (8,057 feet), is the highest mountain on Crete. Located in the Rethymno regional unit, it was sacred to the Greek Titaness Rhea, and on its slopes lies one of the caves, Idaion Andron, in which, according to legend, Zeus was born. Its summit (Timios Stavros)[1] has the highest topographic prominence in Greece.[2][3]

Features

The Skinakas observatory of the University of Crete is located on the secondary peak Skinakas at 1750 m. It has two telescopes including a 1.3 m Modified Ritchey-Chrétien instrument.[4][5]

Mount Ida is the locus for a race of legendary ancient metal workers (Dactyls), whose roots are also associated with Cyprus.[6]

The Nida plateau, to the east of the mountain,[7] is used for downhill skiing.[8]

On the summit of Ida is the little chapel of the Holy Cross, Timios Stavros.[9]

On the plateau are some shepherd's huts (mitata) built only of local stones, and used both for shelter and for cheesemaking.[10][11][12]

Idaean Cave

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Main article: Cave of Zeus

In ancient times the Idaean cave, "cave of the Goddess" (Dea) was venerated by Minoans and Hellenes alike. By Greek times the cave was rededicated to Zeus.[13] In one version of the legend, the cave where Zeus was nurtured is not this one but the Dictaean cave; there the two nymphs who cared for the infant were Adrasteia and Idê. There are a number of caves believed to have been the birthplace or hiding place of Zeus.[14]

Votive seals and ivories have been found in the cave.[15] Like the Dictaean cave, the Idaean cave was known as a place of initiations,[16] and it may have served as the site of an oracle, symbolized by the frequent depiction of a tripod on coins of nearby Axos, which presumably controlled the territory around the cave.[17]

Gallery

  • Mouth of the Idaean Cave

  • East ridge of Mt Ida, Psiloritis in Modern Greek

  • Shepherd's hut (mitato) on Nida Plateau, eastern side of Mt Ida

See also

References

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  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Topo25 Hiking Map of Mt IDHA (2006 edition)
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Pliny (translated by Mary Beagon). 2005. The Elder Pliny on the Human Animal: Natural History, Book 7, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-815065-7, 515 pages
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Antonis Plymakis, Koúmoi-Mitáta kai Boskoi sta Leuká Ori kai Psiloriti ("Shepherd's huts and shepherds in the Lefka Ori and the Psiloritis"), Chania, 2008, 630 p.
  11. ↑ Harriet Blitzer, Pastoral Life in the Mountains of Crete. An Ethnoarchaelogical Perspective, in Expedition, vol. 32, No 3, 1990, pp. 34-41 (on the shepherd's huts of Eastern Crete.
  12. ↑ Sabine Ivanovas, Where Zeus Became a Man (with Cretan Shepherds), Efsthiadis Group Editions, 2000, 183 p. (Life in the corbelled dry stone huts of central Crete).
  13. ↑ Diodorus Siculus, V.70.
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ J. Lesley Fitton,Ivory in Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean from the Bronze Age to the Hellenistic Period (British Museum. Dept. of Greek and Roman Antiquities),1992
  16. ↑ Yulia Ustinova, Caves and the Ancient Greek Mind: descending underground in the search for Ultimate Truth 2009:180.
  17. ↑ Ustinova, noting Capdeville 1990, and, critically, Prent 2005:568.
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