Ríp Mountain / Hora Ríp (Central Bohemia)
N 50° 23.165 E 014° 17.362
33U E 449480 N 5581799
Ríp Mountain, also known as Ríp Hill, is a 459 m solitary hill rising up from the central Bohemian flatland where, according to legend, the first Czechs settled.
Waymark Code: WMNV1E
Location: Ústecký kraj, Czechia
Date Posted: 05/04/2015
Views: 40
Ríp Mountain, also known as Ríp Hill, is a 459 m solitary hill rising up from the central Bohemian flatland where, according to legend, the first Czechs settled. Ríp is located 20 km south-east of town Litomerice.
Geologically, Ríp is the erosional remnant of a Late Oligocene volcano and is composed of basalt nephelites containing olivine granules, amphibole, leucite and — among others — magnetite, so a local magnetic anomaly can even be observed there by the compass. The hill was bare until 1879 when Moric Lobkowitz had it planted with trees. Today, almost all of the mountain is covered by an oak-and-hornbeam forest with some maple, pine ash, and linden trees. Some rare thermophile plants can be found at the few tree-less places on the top of the hill, such as Gagea bohemica and Iris pumila. Ríp, being visible from great distance, has always been an important orientation point in the Bohemian scenery and has attracted attention since the oldest times. The name of the mountain is of pre-Slavic origin and probably comes from the Germanic stem *rip- which means "an elevation, a hill".
According to a traditional legend, first recorded by the ancient Czech chronicler Cosmas of Prague in the early 12th century, Ríp was the place where the first Slavs, led by Forefather Cech, settled. The land was named after the leader. In the 16th century, the legend was revived by Václav Hájek of Libocany who claimed that Cech was buried in the nearby village of Ctineves and, later on, by Alois Jirásek in his Old Bohemian Legends from 1894.
On top of the hill there is a romanesque rotunda of Saint George, which is one of the oldest buildings in the Czech Republic. It is for the first time mentioned in 1126, when Sobeslav I, Duke of Bohemia to commemorate his victorious Battle of Chlumec where he defeated Holy Roman Emperor Lothair III, have rotunda repaired and extended by the western circular tower. The present appearance of the rotunda is the result of a purist reconstruction from the 1870s. Inside the rotunda, there is a stone sculpture by the renowned contemporary Czech artist Stanislav Hanzík (1979) - The Good Shepherd, that symbolizes the arrival of Czech ancestors to the country and the beginning of the Czech history there. Near the rotunda there is a tourist hut that was built in 1907 that still serves travellers today. In accordance with the patriotic spirit of the time, a wooden plate is mounted on the hut wall that says "What Mecca is to a Mohammedan, Ríp is to a Czech" (Czech: "Co Mohamedu Mekka, to Cechu Ríp").
[Wikipedia]