Folio § sîpan
Sîpan
Mount Sipan
The story of the name
Sîpan — the 4 058-metre mountain on the northern shore of Lake Van, around which villages settled and stories made camp. As a name it turns general geography into the specific — not a mountain, but this mountain.
Etymology
Root: Sîpan · Toponym
Sîpan is the Kurdish name of Mount Sîpan (modern Turkish Süphan Dağı), a 4 058-metre stratovolcano on the northern shore of Lake Van. It is the second-highest mountain in eastern Anatolia and a landmark in Kurdish folk geography. The name’s deeper origin is debated — pre-Iranian Anatolian substrate is one hypothesis.
Name family
- Çîya · cognate — the general word for mountain
Updated: 2026-05-02