Pontic Mountains

Author:Laxman Burdak, IFS (R)

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Pontic Mountains form a mountain range in northern Anatolia, Turkey. They are also known as the Parhar Mountains in the local Turkish and Pontic Greek languages.

Variants

• Pontic
• Pontic Alps (Turkish: Kuzey Anadolu Dağları, meaning North Anatolian Mountains)
• Paryadres (Pliny.vi.9, Pliny.vi.11)
• Paryadres (by Strabo)
• Parihedri Mountains.

• Parhar Mountains

Jat Gotras Namesake

• Parihar = Parhar Mountains = Paryadres (Pliny.vi.9, Pliny.vi.11)

Origin

The term Parhar originates from a Hittite word meaning "high" or "summit". In ancient Greek, the mountains were called the Paryadres or Parihedri Mountains.

Geography

The range runs roughly east–west, parallel and close to the southern coast of the Black Sea. It extends northeast into Georgia, and west into the Sea of Marmara, with the northwestern spur of the Küre Mountains (and their western extension the Akçakoca Mountains) and the Bolu Mountains, following the coast. The highest peak in the range is Kaçkar Dağı, which rises to 3,937 m. The North Anatolian Fault and the Northeast Anatolian Fault, which are east–west-running strike-slip faults, run along the length of the range.

Mention by Pliny

Pliny mentions....Greater Armenia¹, beginning at the mountains known as the Paryadres², is separated, as we have already stated³, from Cappadocia by the river Euphrates, and, where that river turns off⁴ in its course, from Mesopotamia, by the no less famous river Tigris.

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1 Greater Armenia, now known as Erzeroum, Kars, Van, and Erivan, was bounded on the north-east and north by the River Cyrus, or Kur of the present day; on the north-west and west by the Moschian mountains, the prolongation of the chain of the Anti-Taurus, and the Euphrates, or Frat of the present day; and on the south and south-east by the mountains called Masius, Niphates, and Gordiæi (the prolongation of the Taurus), and the lower course of the Araxes. On the east the country comes to a point at the confluence of the Syrus and Araxes.

2 Now known as the Kara-bel-Dagh, or Kut-Tagh, a mountain chain running south-west and north-east from the east of Asia Minor into the centre of Armenia, and forming the chief connecting link between the Taurus and the mountains of Armenia.

3 In B. v. c. 20.

4 He means, where the river Euphrates runs the farthest to the west.

Mention by Pliny

Pliny mentions Albania, Iberia, and The Adjoining Nations.......... The chief cities are Cabalaca⁵, in Albania, Harmastis⁶, near a river⁷ of Iberia, and Neoris; there is the region also of Thasie, and that of Triare, extending as far as the mountains known as the Paryadres.

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5 Now called Kablas-Var, according to Parisot.

6 Parisot says that this can be no other than Harmoza on the river Cyrus, in the vicinity of the modern Akhalzik.

7 Probably meaning "of the same name."

References

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