Mount Ida

In Greek mythology, two sacred mountains are called Mount Ida, the “Mountain of the Goddess”: Mount Ida in Crete; and Mount Ida in the ancient Troad region of western Anatolia (in modern-day Turkey) which was also known as the Phrygian Ida in classical antiquity and is the mountain that is mentioned in the Iliad of Homer and the Aeneid of Virgil. Both are associated with the mother goddess in the deepest layers of pre-Greek myth, in that Mount Ida in Anatolia was sacred to Cybele, who is sometimes called Mater Idaea (“Idaean Mother”),[1] while Rhea, often identified with Cybele, put the infant Zeus to nurse with Amaltheia at Mount Ida in Crete. Thereafter, his birthplace was sacred to Zeus, the king and father of Greek gods and goddesses.[2]

The name Ida (Ἴδη) is of unknown origin. Instances of i-da in Linear A probably refer to the mountain in Crete. Three inscriptions bear just the name i-da-ma-te (AR Zf 1 and 2, and KY Za 2), and may refer to mount Ida [3] or to the mother goddess of Ida ( Ἰδαία μάτηρ). In Iliad (Iliad, 2.821), Ἵδη (Ida) means wooded hill, and reminds the mountain worship in the Minoan mother goddess religion.[4] The name is related with the nymph Idaea, who according to Diodor was the mother of the ten Kuretes.[5] Idaea was also an epithet of Cybele. Romans knew Cybele as Magna Mater (“Great Mother”), or as Magna Mater deorum Idaea (“great Idaean mother of the gods”), equivalent to the Greek title Meter Theon Idaia (“Mother of the Gods, from Mount Ida”).[6] Proclus considered it as the “mount of the Ideas”, whence its etymology.[7]