A concept “Riphaean Mountains” in ancient geocartography: myth, cosmology, symbol and/or reality?

• Authors: Alexander Podossinov

Abstracts

EN

One of the most mysterious concepts in ancient geography are the Riphaean Mountains that had for centuries been the object of mythological, cosmological, geographic, cartographic, and poetic discourses. Having originated as a designation of the northern (in relation to Greece) Thracian mountain, the name in the course of time became attached to the mountains located in the extreme north of the oecumene. Cosmological ideas explaining the rising of the earth's surface to the north, the passage of the sun after sunset through the northern outskirts of the oecumene behind the Riphaean Mountains eastward, and many others were associated with these mountains. In ancient literature the Riphaean Mountains are often associated with a blessed people of the Hyperboreans who seemed to live beyond the Riphaean Mountains in a particularly favorable climate. In this paper the attempts of ancient cartographers to locate the Riphaean Mountains on a geographical map will be considered.

Keywords

EN

Riphaean Mountains; ancient cartography; ancient geography

• Publisher: Wydział Geografii i Studiów Regionalnych Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
• Journal: Miscellanea Geographica. Regional Studies on Development
• Year: 2019
• Volume: 23
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 194-198

Dates

published

2019

Contributors

author

Alexander Podossinov

• Institute for General History of Russian Academy of Sciences, Department of Ancient Languages, Historical Faculty, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russian Federation

References

• Ballabriga, A 1986, Le Soleil et le Tartare. L'image mythique du monde en Grèce archaïque [The Sun and the Tartarus. The mythical image of the world in archaic Greece], Paris: Éditions de l'EHESS.
• Beckers, WJ 1914, 'Die rätselhafte Hochgebirge des Altertums, die sogenannten Rhipäen' ['The enigmatic high mountains of antiquity, the so-called Rhipeans'], Geographische Zeitschrift, vol. 20, no. 9/10, pp. 534-557.
• Bolton, JDP 1962, Aristeas of Proconnesus, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Bridgman, T 2005, Hyperboreans: Myth and History in CelticHellenic Contacts, New York and London: Routledge.
• Casson, S 1920, 'The Hyperboreans', The Classical Review, vol. 34, pp. 1-3.
• Daebritz, H 1916, 'Hyperboreer' ['The Hyperboreans'], Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 258-279.
• Dion, R 1976, 'La notion d'Hyperboréens: ses vicissitudes au cours de l'antiquité' ['The notion of Hyperboreans: their vicissitudes during antiquity'], Bulletin de l'association G. Budé 1976, p. 143-157.
• Dion, R 1977, Aspects politiques de la géographie antique [Political Aspects of Ancient Geography], Paris: Belles lettres.
• Harmatta, J 1955/1956, 'Sur l'origin du mythe des Hyperboréens' ['On the origin of the myth of the Hyperboreans'], Acta antiqua Academiae Hungaricae, vol. 3, pp. 57-66.
• Herrmann, A 1942, 'Ottorocorrai' [Ottocores], Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft [Pauly's Realencyclopaedia of Classical Antiquity], vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 1888-1889.
• Kiessling, E 1914, 'Ρίπαια ὄρη' [Ripaean mountains], Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft [Pauly's Realencyclopaedia of Classical Antiquity], vol. 1 (2nd series), pp. 846-916.
• Klaudios Ptolemaios, 2002, 'Klaudios Ptolemaios' in Handbuch der Geographie. Griechisch-Deutsch., 1-2, eds A. Stückelberger & G. Graßhof, Basel: Schwabe Verlag.
• Kyriazopoulos, A 1993, 'The Land of the Hyperboreans in Greek Religous Thinking', Parnassos, vol. 35, pp. 395-398.
• Lasserre, F 1979, 'Rhipaia ore', Kleine Pauly. Lexikon der Antike in fünf Bände, vol. 4, pp. 1417-1419.
• Lazova, T 1996, The Hyperboreans. A Study on the PalaeoBalkan Tradition, Sofia: St. Kliment Ohridski University Press.
• Macurdy, GH 1916, 'The Hyperboreans', Classical Quarterly, vol. 30, pp. 180-183.
• Maciej z Miechowa 1517, Tractatus de duabus Sarmatiis Asiana et Europiana et de contentis in eis, Cracoviae.
• Piechocki, K 2015, 'Erroneous mappings: Ptolemy and visualization of Europe's East', Early Modern Culture of Translation, Philadelphia (Pennsylvania): University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 76-96.
• Podossinov, AV 2002, Vostochnaya Evropa v rimskoy kartograficheskoy traditsii [Eastern Europe in the Roman cartographic tradition], Moscow: Indrik (in Russian).
• Podossinov, AV 2015, Kuda plaval Odissey? O geograficheskikh predstavleniyakh grekov archaicheskoy epokhi [Where sailed Odysseus to? To the geographical concepts of the archaic Greeks]. Moscow: Yazyki slavyanskoy kultury (in Russian).
• Pyankov, IV 1978, 'Rifei - mif i real'nost'['Riphaia, is it myth or reality'], Ural'skiy sledopyt [Uralean traker], vol. 8, pp. 44-48 (in Russian).
• Ramin, J 1979, Mythologie et géographie [Mythology and geography], Paris: Belles Lettres.
• Rausch, S 2013, Bilder des Nordens. Vorstellungen vom Norden in der griechischen Literatur von Homer bis zum Ende des Hellenismus [Pictures of the North. Concepts of the North in Greek literature from Homer to the end of the Hellenism]. Darmstadt: Philipp von Zabern.
• Romm, J 1989, 'Herodotus and mythic geography: The case of Hyperboreans', Transactions of the American Philological Association, vol. 119, pp. 97-113.
• Romm, J 1992, The edges of the earth in ancient thought: Geography, exploration and fiction , Princeton: Clarendon Press
• Stenger, J 2001, 'Rhipaia ore', Der neue Pauly, vol. 10, pp. 992-993.
• Thomson, JO 1948, History of Ancient Geography, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
• Tomaschek, W 1888, Kritik der ältesten Nachrichten über den Skythischen Norden. I. Über das Arimaspische Gedicht des Aristeas ['Criticism of the oldest evidence about the Scythian north. I. About the Arimaspean poem of Aristeas], Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philos.-histor. Klasse, Wien, vol. 116.
• Werhahn, HM 1994, 'Hyperboreer' ['The Hyperboreans'], Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, vol. 16, pp. 967-986.
• van Windekens, AJ 1957, 'Les Hyperboréens' ['The Hyperboreans'], Rheinisches Museum, vol. 100 (NF), pp. 164-169.
• Wikén, E 1939, 'Die Ansichten der Hellenen über den Nordrand der Oikoumene vor Pytheas: Rhipaien und Hyperboreer' ['The Hellenes' views of the northern edge of the oikoumene before Pytheas: Rhipean and Hyperboreans'], ΔΡΑΓΜΑ, Festschrift für Martin P. Nilsson, Lund, pp. 540-552.
• Yel'nitskiy, LA 1961, Znaniya drevnikh o severnykh stranakh [Knowledge of the ancients about the northern lands], Moscow: Gosudarstvennoye izdatel'stvo geograficheskoy literatury (in Russian).

Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/mgrsd-2019-0018

Biblioteka Nauki

2138632