Phauene or Pharene (Farena) (Strabo, XI, 14, 4)? On the Question of the Localization of Pharene, the Legitimacy of the Identification of Phauene (Phaunene) (Strabo, XI, 14, 4) and Phaunitis (Strabo, XI, 14, 5): Issues of Localization

Ամփոփում

In his work, Strabo [49:497] mentions among the provinces[1]  of Greater Armenia – Phauene, Comisene and Orchistene. On the basis of the philological emendation Orchistene = Ortsikhene (Ορχιστηνη < *Ορτσιχηνη), Bagrat Ulubabyan [58] identified the last of these with the Urartian toponym ^kurUrtekhe, from which the present-day Armenian name Artsakh also derives [29:104] known since the 13-14th century AD also under the name Karabakh. [3:7-8;4:54,58;55:104,166,188;50:352;16:173-174;59:155-172;30:117-160]. The name of the province of Phauene, however, owing to the defective state of Strabo’s manuscript, has been restored by philologists only hypothetically. In the words of the translators, there is no firm certainty as to which letter should stand third in order. Philologists have proposed various readings without specifying a localization. On the basis of an etymological approach, the authors propose to read this toponym as Pharene, for which they adduce linguistic evidence and parallels from the Ashkharhatsuyts [13:139;5:103] and from the History of the Country of Aluank by Movses Kaghankatvatsi [42:170], comparing it with the gavar (district) of Parnes (Kusti Parnes) of the region of Artsakh of Greater Armenia, and they also offer a precise localization on a modern cartographic basis. In view of the proposed reconstruction of the toponym Pharene, the article examines the illegitimacy of the identification of Phauene with Phaunitis proposed earlier by B. Harutyunyan (1994/2016) and H.Zh. Harutyunyan (2014), and the groundlessness of the localization of Phaunitis in Syunik.

[1] Old Armenian գավառ (gavar), English district, Russian район