Sacred mountains Examples of this would be the Hindu belief that Mount Kailas is the final resting place for the souls of the dead, as well as the large cemetery placed on Mount Koya-san. Sacred mountains can also provide an important piece of a culture's identity. For example, Messerli and Ives write, “The Armenian people regard Mount Ararat, a volcano in eastern Turkey believed to be the site of Noah's Ark in the Bible, to be a symbol of their natural and cultural identity”. As a result of the mountain's role as a part of a cultural identity, even people who do
Mount Ararat fire left in the old volcano of Ararat?" The Genesis flood narrative was linked to the Armenian myth of origin by the early medieval historian Movses Khorenatsi. In his "History of Armenia", he wrote that Noah and his family first settled in Armenia and later moved to Babylon. Hayk, a descendant of Japheth, a son of Noah, revolted against Bel (the biblical Nimrod) and returned to the area around Mount Ararat, where he established the roots of the Armenian nation. He is thus considered the legendary founding father and the name giver of the Armenian people. According to Razmik Panossian,