Riphean Mountains

The Riphäen were in ancient geography, a mountain range between Europe and Asia, on the very edge of the known world.

Ancient localization

The Riphäen are known mainly from the work of Claudius Ptolemy. For the first time should have been mentioned by the Greek poet Alkmann in the seventh century BC, the mountain range. The Riphäen be equated by Plutarch the Hercynian forest. According to Jordanes the Riphäen were in Skythenlande. The ancient authors were unanimous in that regard, as they called the Riphäengebirge as cold and untwirtlich (the Greek word riphé means " stormy north wind "). Beyond the Riphäen, where the climate was mild again, lived according to Pliny the Elder ( Natural History 6, 34) the Arimphaei. With increasing knowledge of the north of the Mediterranean lying areas in Europe " moved " the Riphäen in the ancient descriptions farther and farther to the north.

The mountain range was considered the headwaters of the Tanaïs, which is equated generally with the Don. While this has its source in the Central Russian plate, not in a mountain range, but led by the ancient sources Tanaïs as the Don in the Sea of ​​Azov ( Maeotis ).

Modern attempts to locate

Even in the mappae mundi of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance as well as in various publications of this time occurs the Riphäengebirge - partly as a mountain range, partly as a dense forest - in appearance. The authors of these writings place the Riphäen geographically in general with close reference to ancient sources. The French Cardinal Pierre d' Ailly and cartographer mentioned the mountains under the name Ripheis silvis.

The location of the Riphäen was controversial even in modern times. They were located in Scandinavia or identified with the Ural Mountains, the Alps or the Carpathians. Knobel will recognize the Riphäen in the Riphat the table of nations in Genesis.

Already in the first half of the 16th century, the Riphäen were, however, already dismissed as " illusions " of ancient authors; so read, among others, in the writings of the cartographer and cosmographers Sebastian Münster and the Italian historian Paolo Giovio. The envoy of the Austrian Emperor at the Russian court, Siegmund Freiherr von Herber Stone, who made a name for himself as a cartographer, pointed at the same time suggests that the sources of the Don can not be in the Riphäengebirge ..

Other meanings

After the Riphäen the Montes Riphaeus were named on the moon. Furthermore, a geological stage of Kraton Sibiria is named after the Riphäengebirge (usually with the English name for Riphäen = Riphean ).