ABSTRACT
The ‘vilâyet’ of Erzurum corresponds approximately to the High Armenia or ‘Karnoy ashkharh’ (country of Karin) of ancient Armenia. The city of Erzurum was called in Armenian Karin ‘Qaghaq’ (Karin city) which became Qâlîqalâ in Arabic. In the eleventh century when the Seljuks captured the town of Arzan (15 km north-west of Karin), the population moved to Karin = Qâlîqalâ and gave it the name Arzân al-Rûm, ‘Arzân of the Romans’, which through a misinterpretation became Arz al-Rûm or Ard al-Rûm, ‘the land of the Romans’.
