Oxii Montes
τὰ Ὤξεια ὄρη
Oxii Montes (τὰ Ὤξεια ὄρη, Ptol. 6.12. § § 1, 4), a chain of mountains between the rivers Oxus and Jaxartes, in a direction from SW. to NE., and which separated Scythia from Sogdiana. They are identified with the metalliferous group of Asferah and Aktagh--the Botom, Botm, or Botam ( Mont Blanc
) of Edrisi (ed, Jaubert, vol. ii. pp. 198--200). The OXI RUPES of Strabo (Ὤξου πέτρα p. 517), which he also calls the hill-fort of Arimazes (Q. Curt. 7.11), has been identified by Droysen, as quoted by Thirlwall (Hist. of Greece, vol. vi. p. 300), with the pass of Kolugha or Derbend, in the Kara-tagh, between Kish and Hissar; but as it is called the rock of the OXUS it must be looked for on that river, and is probably Kürghan-Tippa on the Amü. (Wilson, Ariana, p. 167; Ritter, Erdkunde, vol. vii. p. 734; Humboldt, Asie Centrale, vol. ii. pp. 18--20.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.