Assigned Session: FS 3.237: Open Poster Session
Mountain toponymy as heritage, The example of the summit of the Lebanon
Abstract ID: 3.11600 | Accepted as Poster | Talk/Oral | TBA | TBA
Jack Keilo (0)
Jack Keilo (1)
1
(1) Edytem, USMB, Bd de la mer Caspienne, 73370 Le Bourget-du-Lac, France
(1) Edytem, USMB, Bd de la mer Caspienne, 73370 Le Bourget-du-Lac, France
Societies use oronyms to give meaning to and to change landscape (Ex. gr. The change from the Montagne maudite to the Mont Blanc). I aim to show how place names are used a posteriori to give political meaning to heritage landscape.
Qurnat es Sawda is the highest point of Mount Lebanon (3088 m), dominating the Cedars of God and the Qadisha Valley, both world heritage sites. This oronym’s etymology is subject to debate: in Arabic, it means «the black corner», used by goatherds and reported for the first time by Richard Burton in the 1870s. Meanwhile, the Maronite Church affirms that the etymology derives from the Syriac Qorno t’Sohde, «the Martyrs’ peak». In this regard, the oronym would relate to the Mamluk campaign of 1283 and the mass killings of many of the inhabitants, later Arabised to what it is now. This name interpretation, unknown in written sources before the 19th C., is officially condoned by the Maronite Patriarchate. The apparent banality of «the black corner» is transformed and integrated into the holy and Biblical landscape of Lebanon. In this regard, the oronym etymology becomes itself a cornerstone of meaning to a world heritage site legitimising the Maronite vision of Lebanon.
Burton, Sir Richard Francis, et Charles Frederick Tyrwhitt-Drake. Unexplored Syria: Visits to the Libanus, the Tulúl El Safá, the Anti-Libanus, the Northern Libanus, and the ’Aláh. Vol. 1 and 2. Tinsley brothers, 1872.
Gauchon, Christophe. « Construction toponymique ou mise en ordre du paysage touristique ? Le cas du massif du Mont-Blanc ». Actes des congrès nationaux des sociétés historiques et scientifiques 135, no 15 (2014): 79 94.
Giraut, Frédéric, et Myriam Houssay-Holzschuch. « Place Naming as Dispositif: Toward a Theoretical Framework ». Geopolitics 21, no 1 (2016): 1 21.
Keilo, Jack. « Naming the summit of Lebanon 1830-1930 ». In Conquering the world through cartography. RAOS, Brussels, 2023.
Patriarch Raï. « Letter of the Patriach Raï for the Martyrs’ year ». Saint Anthony Parish in Jdaydeh, 2017.
UNESCO. « WHC Nomination Documentation, Ouadi Qadisha and the Forest of the Cedars of God ». UNESCO, 1998.
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