HERMON, the most imposing, if not the highest, mountain in Syria, and visible far and wide. It is attached to the southern end of Anti-Lebanon. Its snowy top and the beauty of its out line inspired many images of Hebrew poetry. The Sidonians named it Sirion and it was Senir to the Amorites (Deut. iii. 9). According to one view it was the Mount of Transfiguration. To the modern Arab it is Jebel esh-Sheikh ("old man mountain") or Jebel etli-Thelj ("snow mountain"). Conder explained the former name as given because the "sheikh" of the Druses sought retirement there in the tenth century, but the hoary appearance of the mountain itself may have determined the name.
The ridge of Hermon which rises to a sharp peak is 20 m. long. "The formation of the lower part is Nubian sandstone, that of the upper part is a hard dark-grey crystalline limestone belonging to the Neocomian period, and full of fossils." The view from the summit is very extensive and a summer sunrise over Damascus viewed from that point of vantage is an awe-inspiring sight. Hermon is covered in the spring with snow which never entirely disappears and in autumn there is always some snow left piled up in great drifts to 20 or 3o ft. in the gullies and ravines on the mountain top. The ravines and gorges which pierce its lower slopes to the west and south-west are fertile and the vegetation is luxuriant. To a height of 500 ft. oaks, poplars, and brush are met. Foxes, wolves, and Syrian bears still haunt its fastnesses, if in decreasing numbers. The summit splits into three peaks the highest of which is 9,700 f t. above sea-level. On the southern are the ruins of a temple dedicated probably to Baal. This peak, too, is enclosed with a wall. On the plateau separating the peaks is a cave about 8 yd. square. Twelve other small temples, oriented east, are found on the slopes of the mountain. They are dated by archaeologists at c. A.D. 200 and from them several Greek inscriptions have been recovered. (E.