Elburz Mountains

The western reaches of the Alborz follow the Caspian shore through the heights commonly called Talysh. The larger mountain system separates the southern Caspian country from the Iranian plateau, linking the western coast with mountains extending far to the east. Its name also carries a history of sacred geography. Alborz descends from Hara Barazaiti, the legendary mountain of the Avesta, the principal Zoroastrian text; the old Iranian compound conveyed the idea of a mountain rampart. Through Middle Persian Harborz it acquired its later Persian form. This inheritance did not always designate exactly the same physical range. Ferdowsi's Shahnameh places the mountains as though they were in India, and related names were attached to several other high places, including Elbrus in the Caucasus. Such traditions concern the wider Iranian world rather than a single Talysh summit. They explain how the real barrier beside the Caspian could also belong to an imagined landscape of guardianship, sacred heights and remembered heroes, whose names travelled across a much broader region.