Jebel Aqra

Coordinates: 35°57′9″N 35°58′9.5″E / 35.95250°N 35.969306°E / 35.95250; 35.969306
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Not to be confused with Acra, Accra, Akra, Åkra, or other Aqras.
For the other Mount Casius near the Serbonian Bog in Egypt, see Ras Kouroun.
Jebel Aqra
جبل الأقرع
Jebel Aqra overlooking the town of Kessab
Highest point
Elevation1,717 m (5,633 ft)
Coordinates35°57′9″N 35°58′9.5″E / 35.95250°N 35.969306°E / 35.95250; 35.969306
Geography
Jebel Aqra is located in Syria
Jebel Aqra
Jebel Aqra
Syrian-Turkish border
Location
Kesab, Syria
Hatay Province, Turkey

Jebel Aqra (

Arabic: جبل الأقرع, romanized: Jabal al-ʾAqraʿ, [ˈd͡ʒæbæl al ˈʔaqraʕ]; Turkish: Kel Dağı) is a limestone mountain located on the Syrian–Turkish border near the mouth of the Orontes River on the Mediterranean Sea. Rising from a narrow coastal plain, Jebel Aqra is a mariners' landmark which gathers thunderstorms
.

The mountain was a cult site in

ancient Canaanite religion and continuing through classical antiquity
. A mound of ash and debris remains; an archaeological investigation was broken off because of military restrictions imposed due to the mountain's border location.

Names

The ancient

Ugaritic as Ṣapānu (𐎕𐎔𐎐), Egyptian as ḏꜣpwnꜣ (𓍑𓄿𓊪𓏲𓈖𓄿𓌙𓈉), Aramaic as Ṣapōn (𐡑𐡐𐡅𐡍), Phoenician as Ṣapōn (𐤑𐤐𐤍), and Hebrew as Ṣəp̄ōn (צְפֹן‎).[1]

The Hurrians and the Hittites respectively called the mountain Ḫazzi (𒄩𒊍𒍣) and Ḫazi (𒄩𒍣), which was a name also used for it in early Akkadian texts.[2] The Hurro-Hittite name gave rise to the mountain's Ancient Greek name of Kásion (Κάσιον).[3]

Zaphon, like Mizpah and Mizpeh, is derived from a noun meaning lookout point.[4]

History

See also:
Jupiter Casius

Jebel Aqra has a long history as a sacred mountain.[5][6]

The

guarantor on their treaties and observing rites in its honor.[10]

The ancient port of

Assyria in 677 BCE.[12]

It appears in the

Hebrew Scriptures' Book of Isaiah, along with the Mount of the Congregation.[16] From its importance and its position at the northern end of Canaan, it also became a metonym[17][18][19] and then the word for the direction "north" in the Hebrew language
.

Under

neo-Hittite culture into the ninth century [BCE] and so when Greeks settled on the north side of Mount Hazzi they continued to call its main peak 'Mount Kasios'", Lane Fox points out, observing that it was the Mount Olympus of the Near East.[20]

The cult of the god of the mountain was transferred, by interpretatio graeca, to Zeus Kasios, the "Zeus of Mount Kasios", similar to Ras Kouroun in the Sinai. Tiles from the Greco-Roman sanctuary at the site, stamped with the god's name, were reused in the Christian monastery that came to occupy the eastern, landward slopes of Kazios.[21]

Jebel Aqra as seen from Samandağ
The slopes of Jebel Aqra along the Syria-Turkey borderline on the Mediterranean Sea

When kings and emperors climbed Mount Kasios to sacrifice at its

Julian, scaled the mountain, where he had an epiphanic vision of Zeus Kasios, according to his friend and correspondent Libanius.[citation needed
]

Greek theophoric names Kassiodora and Kassiodorus,[23] equally a "gift of Kasios", recall a vow of one or both parents made to ensure fertile conception.[24]

Christian hermits were drawn to the mountain; Barlaam challenged its demons by founding a monastery near the treeline on its eastern slopes, and Simeon Stylites the Younger stood for forty years on a pillar near its northern flanks until his death in 592.

The cult site is represented by a huge mound of ashes and debris, 180 feet (55 m) wide and 26 feet (7.9 m) deep, of which only the first 6 feet (1.8 m) have been excavated. Archaeologists only reached as far as the Hellenistic strata before the site was closed, as it lies in a Turkish military zone on its border with Syria.[7]

Notes

  1. ^ Bar Daroma claimed it as the northern Mount Hor (Hebrew: הר ההר)[13] mentioned in the Book of Numbers,[14] although this is more often taken to refer to Turkey's Nur Mountains.[15]

References

Citations

  1. ^ van Soldt 2009.
  2. ^ Röllig 1975.
  3. ^ Astour, Michael C. [in Ukrainian] (1965). Hellenosemitica: An Ethnic and Cultural Study in West Semitic Impact on Mycenaean Greece. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill Publishers. p. 136.
  4. ^ Steiner 2017 The Aramaic Text in Demotic Script
  5. ^ DDD (1999).
  6. ^ Lane Fox (2009).
  7. ^ a b c Lane Fox (2009), p. 245.
  8. ^ Rutherford (2001).
  9. ^ Lane Fox,[7] quoting Rutherford.[8]
  10. ^ a b DDD (1999), p. 927.
  11. ^ Lane Fox (2009), p. 244.
  12. ^ Lane Fox (2009), p. 252.
  13. ^ Bar Daroma (1958), p. 180–199.
  14. ^ Num. 34:7–8.
  15. ^ Hertz (1988).
  16. ^ Isa. 14:13.
  17. ^ Gen. 13:14.
  18. ^ Deut. 3:27.
  19. ^ Ps. 48.
  20. ^ Lane Fox 2009:246; these cultural connections are the theme of Lane Fox's book.
  21. ^ Lane Fox 2009:246, noting H. Seyrig in W. Djobadze, Archaeological Investigations in the Region West of Antioch and the Orontes, 1986.
  22. ^ Lane Fox 2009:248f.
  23. ^ See Cassiodorus, born in Magna Graecia, who bears the name in its Romanized form.
  24. Kassi-opeia, whose daughter Andromeda was exposed to a sea-monster further along the coast, at Joppa
    .

Bibliography

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