The summit is windswept and bare with a relatively low tree line due to exposure, but the slopes of this mountain, at the edge of mild Mediterranean and colder central Anatolian climate zones, hold a wealth of endemic flora, marooned here after the Ice Age.

Mount Ida owes much of its fame to the work of the poet Homer, gaining renown from having been mentioned in his epic poem the Iliad.

In The Metamorphoses, Ovid writes that Hermaphroditus, the child of Hermes and Aphrodite, was taken after birth to be raised for fifteen years by the Naids of Mount Ida.

On the sacred mountain, the nymphs who were the daughter-spirits of the river Cebrenus, had their haunt, and one, Oenone, who had the chthonic gifts of prophetic vision and the curative powers of herb magic, wed Paris, living as a shepherd on Mount Ida.

He was there on Mount Ida, experiencing the rustic education in exile of many heroes of Greek mythology, for his disastrous future effect on Troy was foretold at his birth, and Priam had him exposed on the sacred slopes.

Anchises, father of Aeneas, also of the Trojan royal house, was tending sheep on Mount Ida when he was seduced by Aphrodite.

But the mountain was the sacred place of the Goddess, and Hera's powers were so magnified on Mount Ida, that she was able to distract Zeus with her seductions, just long enough to permit Poseidon to intercede on behalf of the Argives to drive Hektor and the Trojans back from the ships.

During the Trojan War, in an episode recorded in Epitome of the fourth book of the Bibliotheca, Achilles with some of the Achaean chiefs laid waste the countryside, and made his way to Ida to rustle the cattle of Aeneas.

(Iliad XX) After the Trojan War, the only surviving son of Priam, Helenus, retired to Mount Ida, where he was surprised and became the captive of Neoptolemus.

There is evidence for the following peoples with a reasonable degree of probability: In historical times, Xerxes' march took him past Mount Ida (Herodotus VII:42).

[4][5][6][7] The Republic of Turkey prohibits mining in National Parks, Natural Preserves, Archeological Sites and Wildlife Protection Areas.

A "Great Water and Conscience Meeting" was then held on August 5, during which protesters entered the mining site and symbolically planted trees in front of the press.