Mount Nif, tr, Nif Dağı, (elevation: ) is a mountain in the district of

Kemalpaşa Kemalpaşa is a large town and the center of the district of the same name in İzmir Province, Turkey. Its district area extends immediately to the east of İzmir's easternmost metropolitan district, Bornova, and Kemalpaşa town being at a dista ...

, towering over the district center (''formerly also called Nif''), located immediately to the east of the city of

İzmir İzmir ( , ; ), also spelled Izmir, is a metropolitan city in the western extremity of Anatolia, capital of the province of the same name. It is the third most populous city in Turkey, after Istanbul and Ankara and the second largest urban aggl ...

, in western

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...

. It was one of the nineteen mountains which carried the name Olympus in ancient times. Mount Nif's mass is a protrusion in western direction of Bozdağlar

mountain chain A mountain chain is a row of high mountain summits, a linear sequence of interconnected or related mountains,Whittow, John (1984). ''Dictionary of Physical Geography''. London: Penguin, p 87. . or a contiguous ridge of mountains within a larger m ...

, which separates the valleys of the rivers Gediz and

Küçük Menderes Küçük means "small" in Turkish and may refer to: People Epithet * Küçük Ali (died 1804), also known as ''Ali Đevrlić'', Ottoman janissary and civil servant * Kuchuk Hanem ( fl. 1850–1870), Ghawazi famed beauty and dancer * Küçük ...

, two principal flows of the region, and of which the Mount Bozdağ (

Mount Tmolus Mount Tmolus (Ancient Greek: Τμῶλος, modern Bozdağ; highest point: 2,157 m), named after Tmolus, King of Lydia, is in "a mountain range on the south of Sardis, forming the watershed between the basins of the Hermus in the north and the ...

in antiquity), with its elevation exceeding , constitutes the highest peak, as well as being the highest point for the same region of the provinces of İzmir- Aydın-

Manisa Manisa (), historically known as Magnesia, is a city in Turkey's Aegean Region and the administrative seat of Manisa Province. Modern Manisa is a booming center of industry and services, advantaged by its closeness to the international port ci ...

Uşak Uşak (; el, Ουσάκειον, Ousakeion) is a city in the interior part of the Aegean Region of Turkey. The city has a population of 500,000 (2016 census) and is the capital of Uşak Province. Uşak city is situated at a distance of from İz ...

as a whole. Mount Nif is distinguished from the rest of the mountain chain massif by a narrow but key pass at a locality called ''Karabel'' which leads south towards the town of

Torbalı Torbalı is a district of İzmir Province of Turkey. An ancient Ionian city, Metropolis, is found in the district. It was famous for its wines and religious sites, and had three sanctuaries in marble dedicated to the Roman Emperor Augustus and hi ...

. Karabel Pass is famous for its

Luvian Luwian (), sometimes known as Luvian or Luish, is an ancient language, or group of languages, within the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. The ethnonym Luwian comes from ''Luwiya'' (also spelled ''Luwia'' or ''Luvia'') – ...

warrior prince monument carved in rock and dated to late-13th century BC, inscribed in the name of

Tarkasnawa Tarkasnawa was ruler of the Kingdom of Mira, and one of the last independent kings of Arzawa, a Bronze Age confederation of kingdoms in western Anatolia. He was probably the son of King Alantalli, and a contemporary of the later king Tudḫaliy ...

, a younger contemporary and an addressee of the

Hittite King The dating and sequence of the Hittite kings is compiled from fragmentary records, supplemented by the recent find in Hattusa of a cache of more than 3500 seal impressions giving names and titles and genealogy of Hittite kings. All dates given here ...

Tudhaliya IV Tudhaliya is the name of several Hittite kings: *Tudhaliya (also Tudhaliya I) is a hypothetic pre-Empire king of the Hittites. He would have reigned in the late 17th century BC ( short chronology). Forlanini (1993) conjectures that this king corres ...

. A new reading of its relief inscription, which had been known since the 19th century, was made in 1996 and published in 1998. The monument is called "Eti Baba" (''the Hittite father'') locally. A second pass to the north of Mount Nif separates it, or connects it, since it is still at some altitude, from

Mount Sipylus Mount Spil ( tr, Spil Dağı), the ancient Mount Sipylus ( grc, Σίπυλος) (elevation ), is a mountain rich in legends and history in Manisa Province, Turkey, in what used to be the heartland of the Lydians and what is now Turkey's Aegean R ...

, at the locality called ''Belkahve''. Belkahve is the principal point of access from the east to İzmir metropolitan area and commands an impressive view of a large part of the city.

Ankara Ankara ( , ; ), historically known as Ancyra and Angora, is the capital of Turkey. Located in the central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5.1 million in its urban center and over 5.7 million in Ankara Province, maki ...

-İzmir highway, notably, is checked by its sinuous slopes. Mount Nif is sometimes cited as "Kemalpaşa Mountain" in reference to the district center, especially in Turkish sources. But the name "Mount Nif", deriving from " Nymphaion", the name of the region during the

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

period when it was an important and imperial center especially at the time of the

Nicaean Empire The Empire of Nicaea or the Nicene Empire is the conventional historiographic name for the largest of the three Byzantine Greek''A Short history of Greece from early times to 1964'' by W. A. Heurtley, H. C. Darby, C. W. Crawley, C. M. Woodhouse ...

, is the more common appellation in Turkey as well. This is also the case for the principal stream that crosses the district area, the "River Nif" (''Nif Çayı''). The district center and the depending administrative area almost invariably go by the name of "Kemalpaşa", with the former name used very rarely nowadays and only colloquially.

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* * * {{Mountains of Turkey Nif Landforms of İzmir Province

See also

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