Talk:Mount Elbrus

message: Are we not overlooking a rather obvious interpretation, based on the widespread  occurrence of similar names, e.g., Alborz, north of Teheran, etc.  There is general agreement as to their identity.  The alleged Avestan origin fails to bear any semblance of kinship.  This, like Alps, is a survival, if not from Pleistocene times, more convincingly from Holocene Younger Dryas glacial re-advance as late as 8,000 BP, perhaps even later.  The word signifies glacial cover on tall mountains, that once were visible from great distances in many areas of western Eurasia.  Albus Horos, the White Mountain, is the holistic explanation. Latin has retained the adjective albus, white, and Greek the noun ὌΡΟΣ, mountain. Similarly Alba or Albion for Britain or Scotland, for the late remnants of glacial icecaps on this northern island and its far-north extremity. hgwb 06:51, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  More Etymology:  The Holistic Approach 

message: Is Strobilus really the ancient name of Mount Elbrus? Please check.
* In the very first version (May 2003), the article said: "The ancients knew the mountain as Strobilus and believed that Prometheus was chained here." No source mentioned.
* As of today, somewhat more text has been added, mainly: strobilos = a twisted object. Elbrus is allegedly having a twisted shape. No source mentioned.
* In reality, all we "know" about Strobilus (rather: Strobilos) is a single sentence in Arrian's Periplus of the Euxine Sea. Information about Strobilus/Strobilos must therefore follow Arrian and is very limited.
* Well done here: Strobilus. Arrian's sentence about Strobilos is the last one here in § 16; French translation, English translation.
* This means, Arrian did not say, Strobilos was the ancient name of Mount Elbrus. He said, when sailing toward Dioskurias (= Sukhumi) he was shown a peak in the Caucasus named Strobilos, and this was allegedly the mountain where Prometheus was fastened.
* Which peak in the Caucasus was Strobilos? We don't know that. It may be that mount Strobilos was today's Elbrus. But at least Arrian himself, the one and only source, doesn't say that. He heard this name by some local person oder persons when he travelled there, and he wrote this to Emperor Hadrian. Can we then say, "The ancients knew the mountain as Strobilus"? I don't think so, since Arrian's report only indicates that the name Strobilos was used by the local population of his day. Not by "the ancients".
* Arrian said that Strobilos was pointed out to him. Note that  you can hardly, if at all, see Elbrus from the shore near Sukhumi. You can see Elbrus in this visualisation (to the right at 63°). But the viewpoint in this case is more than 30 km off the coast. Arrian surely traveled much closer to the coast, maybe not even 1 km off the coast. Elbrus would then diseappear in the panorama if you keep the angle. In any case, Elbrus does not appear to be a super-high or dominant mountain when you view it from a ship approaching Sukhumi.
* Is Elbrus clearly a "twisted" mountain, as suggested in the article text? Or is it more "twisted" than other Caucasian peaks? This is also questionable.
In the German article, we spread the same kind of misinformation as the English article, for some ten years. In our case, somebody had relied on a sentence in this travel report in the New York Times (1989) – possibly also the source of the original Strobilus sentence your article. Yesterday, I have changed the German article de:Elbrus according to the facts. I wood like to ask you to change the English article. --Lektor w (talk) 00:24, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I now tried to get the text about Strobilus right, by eight edits, starting with this edit. --Lektor w (talk) 05:29, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Strobilus? 

message: We have this quote still standing:
> As of 2019, the United States Department of State has issued a travel advisory against climbing the mountain
However, as of 2021 this is outdated claim, since USDOD has issued a travel advisory against all travel to Russia in general, so there is no longer any difference between Elbrus and Moscow in that regard.
What we could do:
* Find other travel advisories which still discriminate between Elbrus and the rest of Russia, refer to them.
* Drop that clause, maybe with the section altogether, maybe by linking to Russia's Travel Safety section if there's such thing.
Ilyak (talk) 11:37, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Travel safety and Department of State 

message: I just added a "dubious" tag for the claim that the Caspian Sea can be seen from the summit. I included the following for the "reason" portion of the tag: "Only an extreme refraction coefficient of 0.474 will allow for a horizon distance of 370 km from an altitude of 5642 m above sea level. The standard refraction coefficient is 0.16 or 0.17 and it changes very little at altitudes higher than a few hundred meters. Perhaps this is just poorly written, and the intended meaning was that the Black Sea, not the Caspian Sea, can be seen on an exceptionally clear day. I cannot read the cited source, which is behind a paywall." Perhaps someone can see what the cited source said. Or maybe this just needs to be re-worded so that it clearly means that the Black Sea, not the Caspian Sea, can be seen on an exceptionally clear day. Thanks and cheers! Holy (talk) 19:56, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dubious claim in [[Mount_Elbrus#Situation|Situation]] section