Mount Sipylus

Mount Sipylus (Ancient Greek: Σίπυλος) (elevation 1,513 m or 4,964 ft), is a mountain rich in legends and history in the heartland of Lydia now in Turkey.

History

The Manisa relief, a full-faced statue carved into a cliff face, is found near Mount Sipylus, several kilometers east of Manisa. It is traditionally identified as Cybele and dated to the late Hittite or Luwian period in late second millennium BCE. The sculpture is known as Taş Suret in Turkish (meaning "Stone Figure") and sometimes also referred to as such in international literature. The mountain was considered a favorite haunt of the mother goddess. According to an old myth, the sculpture was carved by Broteas, Tantalus' ugly son.

According to the Byzantine commentator John the Lydian, the unknown author of the 7th-century BCE epic poem, the Titanomachy, placed the birth of Zeus not in Crete but in Lydia, which should signify Mount Sipylus.

The names "Sipylus" or "Sipylum" are mentioned by Pliny the Elder, supported by other sources, as the site of a very celebrated city called "Tantalis" or "the city of Tantalus", after the name of its founder. Presumably located on or very near the mountain, the city's ruins were reportedly still visible around the beginning of the Common Era.

The same Tantalus is famed throughout Greek mythology thanks to the accounts that he had cut up his son Pelops and served him up as food for the gods. His son Pelops is said to have later migrated to the Peloponnese, named after him, and to have founded a kingdom there. Tantalus' daughter was the tragic Niobe, who is associated with the "Weeping Rock" , a natural formation facing the city of Manisa. The Greek deities Apollo and Artemis were said to have killed all 14 children of Niobe at Mount Sipylus, whereupon the grief-stricken Niobe was turned to stone.

Later in ancient times, Mount Sipylus (Ancient Greek: Σίπυλος) rose above the site of Magnesia ad Sipylum (the southern portion of modern Manisa), whose existence is traced back as far as the 5th century BCE. Magnesia was located along the Hermus River on the plain below and was the scene of the defeat of Antiochus III "the Great" by the Romans at the Battle of Magnesia in 190 BCE. The city of Smyrna lay nearby.

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