The Pangaion Hills (; ;

Homeric Greek Homeric Greek is the form of the Greek language that was used by Homer in the '' Iliad'', '' Odyssey'', and Homeric Hymns. It is a literary dialect of Ancient Greek consisting mainly of Ionic, with some Aeolic forms, a few from Arcadocypriot, ...

: Nysa; also called Pangaeon, Pangaeum) are a

mountain range A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have ari ...

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wi ...

, approximately 40 km from

Kavala Kavala ( el, Καβάλα, ''Kavála'' ) is a city in northern Greece, the principal seaport of eastern Macedonia and the capital of Kavala regional unit. It is situated on the Bay of Kavala, across from the island of Thasos and on the Egnat ...

. The highest elevation is 1,956 m at the peak of Koutra. The

Aegean Sea The Aegean Sea ; tr, Ege Denizi ( Greek: Αιγαίο Πέλαγος: "Egéo Pélagos", Turkish: "Ege Denizi" or "Adalar Denizi") is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It is located between the Balkans ...

lies to the south and the plains of

Philippi Philippi (; grc-gre, Φίλιπποι, ''Philippoi'') was a major Greek city northwest of the nearby island, Thasos. Its original name was Crenides ( grc-gre, Κρηνῖδες, ''Krenides'' "Fountains") after its establishment by Thasian colo ...

to the north. The mountain range covers the southeastern portion of the Serres regional unit as well as the northwestern part of the Kavala regional unit which includes the bigger part of the hills. The Ottoman Turks called the hills ''Pınar Dağ'' ("Spring Mount"). The Slavic name is ''Kushnitsa'' (Кушница) or ''Kushinitsa'' (Кушиница).

Description

The hills are direct across a fertile plain from the ancient city of

, they are located in the ancient country of Sintice, between the Strymon and the Xiropotamos rivers and are covered in the oriental plane and

chestnut The chestnuts are the deciduous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Castanea'', in the beech family Fagaceae. They are native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce. The unrel ...

trees. Towns found in the Pangaion hills include Nikisiani and Palaiochori which are agricultural in nature and grow mainly

grain A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit ( caryopsis) – with or without an attached hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and legum ...

and

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

. The town of Palaiochori boasts the ruins of an ancient

castle A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...

on a peak overlooking the town.

Gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...

and

silver Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...

were mined in the ancient times. The Athenian tyrant

Pisistratus Pisistratus or Peisistratus ( grc-gre, wikt:Πεισίστρατος, Πεισίστρατος ; 600 – 527 BC) was a politician in ancient Athens, ruling as tyrant in the late 560s, the early 550s and from 546 BC until his death. His unificat ...

was exiled in the middle of the mountain. It was the rich gold and silver available in the region that made the Athenians send out a colony in 465 to an area known as the Nine Roads (''Ennéa Hodoí''). The colonists were massacred by nearby Thracians and the colony was abandoned, though the Athenians would return to the area with their colony at

Amphipolis Amphipolis ( ell, Αμφίπολη, translit=Amfipoli; grc, Ἀμφίπολις, translit=Amphipolis) is a municipality in the Serres regional unit, Macedonia, Greece. The seat of the municipality is Rodolivos. It was an important ancient Gr ...

. Pangaion is very often referred to by ancient Greek and Latin sources. It was famous for silver and gold mines, as well as for shipyard wood and the oracle of

Dionysus In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, myth, Dionysus (; grc, wikt:Διόνυσος, Διόνυσος ) is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstas ...

.D. C. Samsaris, ''Historical Geography of Eastern Macedonia during the Antiquity'' (in Greek), Thessaloniki 1976 (Society for Macedonian Studies), pp. 15, 36–41
digitized version
). . The municipality of Pangaio is named after this mountain range and the seat of the municipality is Eleftheroupoli.

References

External links

Greek Mountain Flora

Pangaio Mountain terrain map
by Geopsis {{Authority control Landforms of Kavala (regional unit) Landforms of Serres (regional unit) Mountain ranges of Greece Geography of Macedonia (region) Lower Macedonia Landforms of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace Quarries in Greece Rhodope mountain range