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 Ararat are known as Büyük Ağrı and Küçük Ağrı, respectively. The traditional Persian name is , , , literally the "mountain of Noah". The Kurdish name of the mountain is çiyayê Agirî , which translates to "fiery mountain". Mount Ararat is located in the Eastern Anatolia Region of Turkey between the provinces of Ağrı and Iğdır, near the border with Iran, Armenia and Nakhchivan exclave of Azerbaijan, between the Aras and Murat rivers. Its summit is located some west of the Turkey-Iran border and south of the Turco-Armenian border. The Ararat plain runs along its northwest to western side. An