Pamir Mountains....Po-i-mihr, the Feet of Mitra

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The Pamir Mountains are a mountain range in Central Asia formed by the junction or knot of the Himalayas, Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun, and Hindu Kush ranges. They are among the world’s highest mountains, known as the "Roof of the World", a translation from the Persian...

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In other languages they are called: Kyrgyz Памир тоолору; Persian: رشته کوه های پامیر‎ Reshte Kūh-hāye Pāmīr; Tajik: Кӯҳҳои Помир; Pashto: د پامير غرونه‎; Uyghur: پامىر ئېگىزلىكى; Urdu: پامیر کوهستان; Hindi: पामीर पर्वतमाला; simplified Chinese: 葱岭; traditional Chinese: 蔥嶺; pinyin: Cōnglǐng; Wade–Giles: Ts'ung-ling or "Onion Range" (after the wild onions growing in the region). The name "Pamir" is used more commonly in Modern Chinese and loaned as simplified Chinese: 帕米尔; traditional Chinese: 帕米爾; pinyin: Pàmǐ'ěr.

The three highest mountains are Ismoil Somoni Peak (known from 1932–1962 as Stalin Peak, and from 1962–1998 as Communism Peak), 7,495 m (24,590 ft); Ibn Sina Peak (still unofficially known as Lenin Peak), 7,134 m (23,406 ft); and Peak Korzhenevskaya (Russian: Пик Корженевской, Pik Korzhenevskoi), 7,105 m (23,310 ft)......There are many glaciers in the Pamir Mountains, including the 77 km (48 mi) long Fedchenko Glacier, the longest in the former USSR and the longest glacier outside the Polar region.

"The lapis lazuli found in Egyptian tombs is thought to come from the Pamir area in Badakhshan province of Afghanistan. About 138 BC Zhang Qian reached the Fergana Valley northwest of the Pamirs. Ptolemy vaguely describes a trade route though the area. From about 600 AD, Buddhist pilgrims travelled on both sides of the Pamirs to reach India from China. In 747 a Tang army was on the Wakhan River. There are various Arab and Chinese reports. Marco Polo may have travelled along the Panj River."......Robert Middleton and Huw Thomas, 'Tajikistan and the High Pamirs',Odyssey Books, 2008

The Great Pamir is around Lake Zorkul.....Out of the lake, towards the west, flows the Pamir River, tracing the Afghan-Tajik border. It is therefore a source of the Amu Darya or Oxus River. The Great Pamir extends to the south of the lake....Once named Lake Victoria by the British, Lake Zorkul, straddling the Afghan-Tajik border, is the starting point of the mighty Amu Darya (previously Oxus) river, fed by the glaciers coming from the mountains above...".....http://caravanistan.com/best-of/7-lakes-central-asia/.

"Greeks and the Pamir Mountains.....Some Greek sources claim that the Greeks (Achaeans) departed from the lowest points of the mountain to Greece and so did the late Dorians.....The Achaeans (Ancient Greek: Ἀχαιοί, Akhaioí) constitute one of the collective names for the Greeks in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.....The Dorians (Greek: Δωριεῖς, Dōrieis, singular Δωριεύς, Dōrieus) were one of the four major Greek ethnē into which the Greeks, or Hellenes, of the ancient period considered themselves divided (along with the Aeolians, Achaeans and Ionians)"

"The Kingdom of Balhara is a controversial hypothesis of some Bulgarian scientists (for example: Georgi Bakalov, Petar Dobrev, Ian Mladjov) to have been the earliest known state of the ancient Bulgars, situated in the upper course of Oxus River (present Amu Darya), and the foothills and valleys of Hindu Kush and Pamir Mountains (ancient Mount Imeon). One historian - Dr Peter Dobrev, places the date of the kingdom around the 12th century BC, while others (from Ashharatsuyts) place the date 7/6th century BC...In Sanskrit, "Bal" means "strength" and "hara" means "the possessor", thus, "Balhara" means "the possessor of strength" (and so, in that regard also the name of Bulgar could mean "possesor of strength"); another theory is that "Balh" refers to the city of Balkh (Balhara's capital) and that "ar" means "man of", so Bal-hara could mean "man of Balh/Balkh"; consequently "Bulg-ar" could then mean "man of Balkh"."....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Balhara

"Mount Imeon was famous for its lapis lazuli deposits in western Badakhshan, indicated on Shirakatsi’s map. The mines at Sar-e-Sang have been producing lapis lazuli for millennia now, supplying the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, and Rome, and still yielding the world’s finest lapis. The Venetian adventurer Marco Polo visited the mines in 1271 during his famous journey to China, following the Silk Road to cross the mountains by way of Wakhan.".....Polo, Marco and Rustichello of Pisa. The Travels of Marco Polo, Vol. 1. Ed. Henry Yule (1903), and Henry Cordier (1920). Gutenberg Project, 2004.

"Tashkurgan became the capital of Sarikol kingdom (色勒库尔), a kingdom of the Pamir Mountains, and later of Qiepantuo (朅盘陀) under the Persians. At the northeast corner of the town is a huge fortress known as the Princess Castle dating from the Yuan Dynasty (1279–1368 CE), and the subject of many colourful local legends. A ruined Zoroastrian temple is located near the fortress...Some scholars believe that a stone tower mentioned in Ptolemy and other early accounts of travel on the Silk Road refers to this spot.."... Stein, Aurel (1907). Ancient Khotan: Detailed Report of Archaeological Explorations in Chinese Turkestan. Oxford: The Clarendon Press. pp. 34–35.

"some researchers have identified Mount Meru or Sumeru with the Pamirs, north-east of Kashmir.".....The Geopolitics of South Asia: From Early Empires to the Nuclear Age, 2003, p 16, Graham P. Chapman - Social Science; The Pamirs and the Source of the Oxus, p 15, George Nathaniel Curzon;

"There exist several versions of Cosmology in existing Hindu texts. In one of them, cosmologically, the Meru mountain was also described as being surrounded by Mandrachal Mountain to the east, Supasarv Mountain to the west, Kumuda Mountain to the north and Kailash to the south."....J.P. Mittal, History of Ancient India: From 7300 BC to 4250 BC

"The Pamir-Badakhshan region is home to very old Zoroastrian historical sites and most of the Zoroastrian historical sites we have identified so far in Tajikistan, are in the Badakhshan-Pamir region. There are also enigmatic hand and feet symbols carved into the rock of the Pamir mountains. The Pamiri consider the rocks holy.....a strong candidate for the location of Airyana Vaeja was the general area around Tajikistan and more specifically, the Pamir-Badakhshan region......Tajiks call the Pamirs, Po-mir or Po-i-mihr, the Feet of Mitra, and also Bom-i-Dunyo, the Roof of the World. Mitra is a pre-Zoroastrian Indo-Iranian deity, an asura. ..... the Pamirs are also home to temperate valleys.....While the mountains are rugged and the highlands stark, many of the valleys are fertile.......The Pamir's deposits of precious stones and metals that correspond to those described as being contained in Mount Meru, the mountain that stood at the centre of the world, in the Hindu scripture, the Vedas. Mount Meru is the equivalent of the Mount Hara Berezaiti, Airyana Vaeja's central mountain mentioned Zoroastrian scriptures, the Avesta. In the Vedas, Mount Meru is described as a four sided mountain where the four sides are made from four different precious substances: the south of lapis-lazuli, the west of ruby, the north of gold and the east of silver (or crystal). .....Some of the earliest trade between the Aryan nations of the Vendidad took place out of Badakhshan with its exclusive Sar-i Sang Lapis Lazuli mines on the upper reaches of the Kokcha River, a tributary of the Panj (also called Amu Darya or Oxus) exporting Lapis as far west as Mesopotamia and Egypt and as early as the 4th millennium BCE (cf. Ancient Mesopotamian Materials and Industries by Peter Roger Stuart Moorey, p. 86). .....one of the Zoroastrian era forts called the Zamr-i-Atish-Parast, or Fortress of the Fire Worshippers, at Yamchun served this function.......http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/tajikistan/page3.htm

"Kongur Tagh is within a range called the Kongur Shan (Chinese: 公格尔山; pinyin: Gōnggé'ěr Shān), located just north of Muztagh Ata and visible from Karakul Lake. Some sources use "Kongur Shan" mistakenly to refer to the peak itself. The Kongur and Muztagh Ata ranges are sometimes considered a subrange of either the Kunlun Mountains or the Pamir Mountains. In either case Kongur Tagh would be the highest summit of those ranges. Due to its remoteness and being hidden by nearby peaks, Kongur was not discovered by Europeans until 1900. However, the building of the Karakorum Highway from Pakistan to China, which runs past nearby Tashkurgan and Karakul Lake, has now made it more accessible.".....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kongur_Tagh

"The precise extent of the Pamir Mountains is debatable.They lie mostly in Gorno-Badakhshan province, Tajikistan and Badakshan Province, Afghanistan. To the north they join the Tian Shan mountains along the Alay Valley of Kyrgyzstan. To the south they join the Hindu Kush mountains along the Wakhan Corridor in Afghanistan and Gilgit–Baltistan in Pakistan. To the east they may end on the Chinese border or extend to the range that includes Kongur Tagh which is sometimes included in the Kunlun Mountains.".....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamir_Mountains

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

John Hopkins.....Northern New Mexico….April 2013

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