- Project Runeberg -  Armenia and the Near East /
120

(1928) [MARC] Author: Fridtjof Nansen - Tema: Russia
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Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - V. To Erivan. The physical features of Armenia

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ARMENIA AND THE NEAR EAST
120
ancient legend of the origins of the human race. Here, or
at any rate somewhere near, was the site of the Garden of
Eden with the four river-heads, two of them being the
Euphrates and the Tigris, which come from the ancient
mountains of Armenia, while the other two may have been
the Arax and the Kura. Here, too, was the second home
of humanity where Noah descended from the mountain,
planted vineyards, and taught mankind the joys of the grape.
One objection to the story of the dove and the olive-leaf has
been raised by a shrewd traveller, who noticed that olive-trees
do not grow in these parts. But we may console ourselves
with the thought that Noah may not have been a particularly
good botanist ; or the dove might have flown very far, for
she only returned to him "at eventide." At no great distance
from here would also have been the plain in the land of Shinar,
where the Tower of Babel was built.
Through the Arax Valley passed the natural route from the
east to the west, between the Caspian Sea and Persia on one
side and Asia Minor on the other, traversing a succession of
valleys and plains, along the Arax and through the Erivan
plain and the Pasin plain to Erzerum, whence it continued
either in a north-westerly direction to Trebizond, or in a
westerly direction along the Upper Euphrates to Erzingian,
and so on into Asia Minor.
The wide plain in the Arax Valley is surrounded on all sides
by high ridges of mountains, so that it forms, as it were, the
flat bottom of a wide cauldron. In the south, running from
west-north-west to east-south-east, is a high mountain
rampart called Aghri Dagh, håving as its huge south-eastern
bastion Mount Ararat, with Little Ararat’s pyramid as the
extreme corner tower. The passes through this range of
mountains are at a height of 2,097 and 2,543 metres respec
tively. Along the crest, to the west of the slopes of Ararat,
the peaks rise to 3,243 metres (Chengel Dagh), 3,358 metres
(Khama Dagh) and 3,245 metres (PerS Dagh). This western
part of the range forms the watershed of the Arax in the north,
and of the sources of the Euphrates in the south. By Perli
Dagh a lower ridge branches off towards the plain in a north
north-easterly direction, ending in the sharp, prominent peak

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