East Taurus

The eastern Taurus is one of the great mountain barriers of Anatolia. The Taurus complex separates the Mediterranean coastal region from the central Anatolian Plateau and curves eastward from Lake Eğirdir to the upper Euphrates and Tigris. Its southeastern arm includes the Malatya Mountains and the Nurhak, Maden, Genç and Bitlis ranges, placing the whole belt in the watersheds of the two rivers that drain toward Mesopotamia. The mountains form part of the Alpide belt that runs across Eurasia.

The range is the product of collision between the African and Eurasian tectonic plates. Limestone dominates the bedrock, and in some sectors water has dissolved the rock into karst landscapes with waterfalls, underground rivers and large caves. Vegetation changes strongly with altitude. Lower slopes carry evergreen oak and Turkish pine woodland or maquis; above about 1,200 metres grow black pine, Lebanon cedar, Taurus fir and juniper. Alpine meadows occupy the highest ground.

Taurus passes have shaped contact between coasts, plateaus and Mesopotamia since antiquity. The Cilician Gates remained the principal route through the eastern Taurus, joining the Cilician plain to central Anatolia. The name Taurus appears in Polybius and may derive from an Old Aramaic word for mountain. The range also held temples of Near Eastern storm gods, and the Hurrians, associated with those traditions, are placed subsequently scholars among its probable early peoples.