Mount Ida (Crete)

The Psiloritis is located on the water divide between the southern part of Crete, which drains to the Libyan Sea, and the northern basin facing the Aegean Sea. A saddle at 2,321 m East of the summit connects it with Mount Agathias, while westwards the ridge continues with Mount Stolistra (2,336 m){{cite map | title = 1:35.000 scale map nr.11.14 - Ψηλορείτης (Agathias) | publisher = Anavasi }}

The Skinakas Observatory of the University of Crete is located on the secondary peak of Skinakas at 1750 m. It has two telescopes including a 1.3 m Modified Ritchey-Chrétien instrument.{{cite web |title=Skinakas Observatory |url=http://www.physics.uoc.gr/en/node/62 |publisher=University of Crete Department of Physics |access-date=15 March 2015}}{{cite web |title=Skinakas Observatory |url=http://skinakas.physics.uoc.gr/en/ |publisher=Skinakas Observatory |access-date=15 March 2015}}

The Nida plateau is found to the east of the mountain.{{cite web|url=http://www.lonelyplanet.com/greece/mt-psiloritis/introduction|title=Introducing Mt Psiloritis|publisher=Lonely Planet|access-date=15 March 2015|archive-date=18 September 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160918130835/http://www.lonelyplanet.com/greece/mt-psiloritis/introduction|url-status=dead}} On the plateau are some shepherd's huts (mitata) built only of local stones, and used both for shelter and for cheesemaking.Antonis Plymakis, Koúmoi-Mitáta kai Boskoi sta Leuká Ori kai Psiloriti ("Shepherd's huts and shepherds in the Lefka Ori and the Psiloritis"), Chania, 2008, 630 p.Harriet Blitzer, Pastoral Life in the Mountains of Crete. An Ethnoarchaelogical Perspective, in Expedition, vol. 32, No 3, 1990, pp. 34-41 (on the shepherd's huts of Eastern Crete.Sabine Ivanovas, Where Zeus Became a Man (with Cretan Shepherds), Efsthiadis Group Editions, 2000, 183 p. (Life in the corbelled dry stone huts of central Crete). On the northeast of the mountain, beneath Skinakas Peak, the site of the observatory, is Vromonero Plateau, the site of a holly and maple grove, with many endemic and endangered species. It, along with the access road through Halasia Gorge, and the starting point at Krousonas, has been defined as a Natura 2000 protected areaKrousonas – Vromonero Idis, ID GR4310009. [https://natura2000.eea.europa.eu/?sitecode=GR4310009&views=Sites_View Natura 2000 Viewer]

Zominthos is a plateau that is located in the northern foothills of Mount Ida. On the plateau is the highest altitude Minoan villa ever found, the Minoan villa of Zominthos.

Kamares cave was used as a cave sanctuary in ancient times. The Minoan pottery known as Kamares ware was named after the cave, where some of the first examples were found.{{cite encyclopedia |title=Protopalatial Crete: The Material Culture |encyclopedia=The Cambridge Companion to the Aegean Bronze Age|year=2008|last=Knappet|first=Carl|editor-last=Shelmerdine|editor-first= Cynthia|publisher=Cambridge University Press|doi=10.1017/CCOL9780521814447.006|isbn=978-0-521-89127-1|pages=121-121,127}}{{cite book|last=Betancourt|first=Philip|year=1985|title=The history of Minoan pottery: a handbook |publisher=Princeton University Press|pages=95-102|isbn=0-691-03579-2}}

{{main|Dactyls (mythology)}}

Ida is the locus for a race of legendary ancient metal workers, the Dactyls.

{{main|Cave of Zeus}}

In ancient times the Idaean cave, "cave of the Goddess" (Dea) was venerated by Minoans and Hellenes alike. By Greek times the cave was rededicated to Zeus.Diodorus Siculus, V.70. The cave where Zeus was nurtured is variously stated to be this cave, another of the same name, or the Dictaean cave.{{cite book |title=A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology |date=c. 1873 |publisher=John Murray |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0104%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DZ%3Aentry+group%3D2%3Aentry%3Dzeus-bio-1 |editor=William Smith}}

Votive seals and ivories have been found in the cave.J. Lesley Fitton,Ivory in Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean from the Bronze Age to the Hellenistic Period (British Museum. Dept. of Greek and Roman Antiquities),1992 Like the Dictaean cave, the Idaean cave was known as a place of initiations.Yulia Ustinova, Caves and the Ancient Greek Mind: descending underground in the search for Ultimate Truth 2009:180. It may have served as the site of an oracle, symbolized by the frequent depiction of a tripod on coins of nearby Axos, which presumably controlled the territory around the cave.Ustinova, noting Capdeville 1990, and, critically, Prent 2005:568.

In Inferno XIV, Dante visualizes an old man within Mt. Ida. His head was of gold, his arms and breast of silver, his lower abdomen brass, and below that he was of iron except that his right foot was of clay, upon which all his weight bore. This symbolized the decay of the world, and his tears formed the rivers of Hell.[https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/collection/international/print/b/blake/ipd00013.html The Symbolic Figure of the Course of Human History Described by Virgil. 1824-27]

File:Idian-Cave-20070814-059834.jpg|Mouth of the Idaean Cave

File:Psiloritis, east ridge.jpg|Eastern ridge of the summit of Mount Ida.

File:Nida Plateau - Mitata.jpg|Shepherd's hut (mitato) on Nida Plateau, eastern side of Mt Ida

File:Skinakas observatory.JPG|Skinakas Observatory

File:ΙΔΗ ΑΝΩΓΕΙΑ 1.jpg|Near Anogeia

• Idaea
• Mount Kedros
• List of mountains in Greece

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{{commons category|Mount Ida, Crete}}

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Category:Two-thousanders of Greece

Category:Mountains of Crete

Category:Landforms of Rethymno (regional unit)

Category:Landforms of Heraklion (regional unit)

Category:Geography of ancient Crete

Category:Natura 2000 in Greece

Ida

Category:Rhea (mythology)

Category:Zeus