Mount Ararat, Turkey

Mount Ararat is a snow-capped, dormant volcanic cone in Turkey. It has two peaks: Greater Ararat and Lesser Ararat.

The Ararat massif is about 40 km 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 favour, allowing it to occupy the eastern flank of Lesser Ararat.

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 culture and nationalism. The mountain can be seen on the Coat of arms of Armenia.

Ararat is a stratovolcano, formed of lava flows and pyroclastic ejecta, with no volcanic crater. Above the height of 4,100 m, the mountain mostly consists of igneous rocks covered by an ice cap. A smaller 3,896 m cone, Little Ararat, rises from the same base, southeast of the main peak. The lava plateau stretches out between the two pinnacles. The bases of these two mountains is approximately 1,000 km2. The formation of Ararat is hard to retrieve geologically, but the type of volcanism and the position of the volcano raise the idea that subduction relation volcanism occurred when the Tethys Ocean closed during the Neogene.

An elevation of 5,165 m for Mount Ararat is still given by some authorities. However, a number of other sources, such as public domain and verifiable SRTM data and a 2007 GPS measurement show that the alternatively widespread figure of 5,137 m is probably more accurate, and that the true elevation may be even lower due to the thick layer of snow-covered ice cap which permanently remains on the top of the mountain. 5,137 m is also supported by numerous topographic maps.

Dr. Friedrich Parrot, with the help of Khachatur Abovian, was the first explorer in modern times to reach the summit of Mount Ararat, subsequent to the onset of Russian rule in 1829. Abovian and Parrot crossed the Aras River and headed to the Armenian village of Agori situated on the northern slope of Ararat 4,000 feet above sea level. Following the advice of Harutiun Alamdarian of Tbilisi, they set up a base camp at the Monastery of Saint Jacob some 2,400 feet higher, at an elevation of 6,375 feet. Abovian was one of the last travelers to visit Agori and the monastery before a disastrous earthquake completely buried both in May 1840. Their first attempt to climb the mountain, using the northeastern slope, failed as a result of lack of warm clothing.

The name "Ararat" for the peak derives from the tradition linking it with the Biblical Mountains of Ararat where Noah's Ark came to rest after the great flood.

The identification of Mount Ararat with these biblical mountains is ancient, entering Western Christianity in the fourth century, with Jerome's reading of Josephus. The Vulgata renders the Hebrew hārəy Ǎrārāṭ as montes Armeniae.

In eastern tradition, the biblical mountains are associated with Mount Judi in what is now northwestern Iran. But by the medieval period, the western tradition appears to have eclipsed the earlier association with Mount Judi even in Eastern Christianity, and the Mount Judi tradition is now mostly confined to the Islamic view of Noah.

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