Painful Mountain | Turkey

This postcard arrived today!! It was sent by Selin from Turkey via postcarossing [TR-55471]. On top it shows Mount Agri [aka Mount Ararat], in the middle Sanliufra, in the bottom Lake Nemrut and on the wright Osvank Church at Erzurum.

Mount Ararat  is a snow-capped, dormant volcanic cone in Turkey. It has two peaks: Greater Ararat (the tallest peak in Turkey, and the entire Armenian plateau with an elevation of 5,137 m/16,854 ft) and Lesser Ararat (with an elevation of 3,896 m/12,782 ft). The Ararat massif is about 40 km (25 mi) in diameter. The Iran-Turkey boundary skirts east of Lesser Ararat, the lower peak of the Ararat massif. It was in this area that by the Tehran Convention of 1932 a border change was made in Turkey's favor, permitting her to occupy the eastern flank of the massif.

Mount Ararat in Judeo-Christian tradition is associated with the "Mountains of Ararat" where according to the book of Genesis, Noah's ark came to rest. It also plays a significant role in Armenian nationalism and irredentism.

• Ararat - The Bible says that Noah's ark landed on the mountains of Ararat. This does not refer to any specific mountain or peak, but rather a mountain range within the region of Ararat, which was the name of an ancient proto-Armenian kingdom also known as Urartu. Nonetheless, one particular tradition identifies the mountain as Mount Masis, the highest peak in the Armenian Highland, which is therefore called Mount Ararat. According to the medieval Armenian historian Moses of Khoren in his History of Armenia, the plain of Ayrarat (directly north of the mountain) got its name after King Ara the Handsome (the great grandson of Amasya). Here the Assyrian Queen Semiramis is said to have lingered for a few days after the death of Ara. According to Thomson, the mountain is called Ararat (Armenian: Արարատ) corresponding to Ayrarat, the name of the province.
• Masis (Armenian: Մասիս) - is the Armenian name for the peak of Ararat, the plural Masikʿ (Armenian: Մասիք) may refer to both peaks. The History of Armenia derives the name from a king Amasya, the great-grandson of the Armenian patriarch Hayk, who is said to have called the mountain Masis after his own name.
• Çiyayê Agirî (Fiery Mountain), Çiyayê Alavhat and Grîdax (Kurdish): This entire tree name referred a volcanic characteristic of Mount Ararat. It is the only name to have a clear, descriptive etymology while also indicating the preservation of folk memory.
• Ağrı Dağı (Mountain of Ağrı) - The Ottoman Turkish name was Aghur Dagh اغـر طﺎﻍ means heavy mountain. Since Ağrı literally means "pain" in Turkic languages such as Azeri and Turkish, the toponym has been popularly rendered as "Painful Mountain". It is almost certainly, however, a borrowing of the Kurdish toponym. Ağrı is also a province in the Eastern Anatolian Region of Turkey, which derived its name from the mountain in 1949. During the Ottoman Empire era the Ağrı village was originally called Karakilise (black church).
• Kuh-e-Nuh (Noah's Mountain): (Persian: کوه نوح, IPA: Kuh-e Nuh) , also influenced by the flood story, this time via the Islamic view of Noah.

Şanlıurfa, often simply known as Urfa in daily language (Syriac ܐܘܪܗܝ Urhoy, Kurdish Riha, Armenian Urhai, Arabic الرها ar-Ruhā), in ancient times Edessa, is a city with 482,323 inhabitants (2009 estimate in south-eastern Turkey, and the capital of Şanlıurfa Province. Urfa is situated on a plain under big open skies, about eighty kilometres east of the Euphrates River. The climate features extremely hot, dry summers and cool, moist winters.

Lake Van (Armenian: Վանա լիճ Vana lich, Kurdish: Gola Wanê, Turkish: Van Gölü) is the largest lake in Turkey, located in the far east of the country in Van district. It is a saline and soda lake, receiving water from numerous small streams that descend from the surrounding mountains. Lake Van is one of the world's largest endorheic lakes (having no outlet). The original outlet from the basin was blocked by an ancient volcanic eruption. Tushpa, the capital of Urartu, was located near the shores of Lake Van, on the site of what became medieval Van's castle, west of present-day Van city. The ruins of the medieval city of Van are still visible below the southern slopes of the rock on which Van Castle is located.

Erzurum (Armenian: Կարին, Karin; Greek: Θεοδοσιούπολις, Theodosiopolis) is a city in eastern Anatolia, Turkey. The name "Erzurum" derives from "Arz-e Rûm" (literally The Land of the Romans in Arabic). To the Arabs, the city was known as Ḳālīḳalā (adopted from the Armenian name Karno K'aghak'). The town was known in Roman and subsequently Byzantine times as Theodosiopolis, acquiring its present name after its conquest by the Seljuk Turks following the Battle of Manzikert in 1071.

Erzurum had a population of 361,235 in the 2000 census. It is the capital of Erzurum Province, the largest province in Turkey's Eastern Anatolia Region. The city is situated 1757 meters (5766 feet) above sea level.

Erzurum, known as "The Rock" in NATO code, has served as NATO's southeastern-most air force post during the Cold War. The city uses the double-headed Anatolian Seljuk Eagle as its coat-of-arms, a motif based on the double-headed Byzantine Eagle that was a common symbol throughout Anatolia and the Balkans in the medieval period.

[all in: wikipedia]