Phasis (town)
Phasis (
. Its ancient bishopric became a Latin Catholic titular see of Metropolitan rank.Etymology
The names of ancient Phasis and modern Poti are apparently linked to each other, but the etymology is a matter of a scholarly dispute. "Phasis" is first recorded in
Since Erich Diehl, in 1938, first suggested a non-Hellenic origin of the name and that Phasis might have been a derivative of a local
The name Phasis is the origin of the word pheasant.[4]
History
Phasis appears in numerous Classical and early medieval sources as well as the
Phasis was probably a mixed Hellenic–"barbarian" city,[3] in which the Greek settlers coexisted peacefully with the natives.[5] It seems to have been a vital component of the presumed trade route from India to the Black Sea, attested by the Classical authors Strabo and Pliny.[6]
During the
During the
Search for Phasis
Despite the seemingly numerous references to the location of Phasis in the sources, the exact spot has not yet been identified.[5] The search for the city has a long history, beginning with the French traveler Jean Chardin, who visited Georgia in the 1670s and unsuccessfully tried to find evidence of the ancient Greek polis at the mouth of the Phasis (Rioni) river. The first attempt at a scientific identification, based on an analysis of the Classical and Byzantine authors and his own fieldwork, belongs to the Swiss scholar Frédéric Dubois de Montpéreux, who traveled to the area between 1831 and 1834.[10]
Dubois’s principal conclusion—shared by modern mainstream scholarship—was that, owing to the geomorphologic changes of this locale, Phasis should be sought to the east of modern Poti, and that the ancient city was at various times at different places. Following Dubois, the majority of scholars have identified the fortress described by the ancient Greek scholar Arrian with the ruins called by locals Najikhuri, literally meaning "the site of a former fortress". It had been exploited as one of the principal reference points. However, by the time the Georgian scholars Otar Lordkipanidze and Teimuraz Mikeladze began full-scale archaeological studies of the area early in the 1960s, these ruins had already been demolished by the Soviet authorities during the construction of an airfield between 1959 and 1960.[10]
After many years of uncertainty and academic debate, the site of this settlement now seems to be established, through a combination of surface, systematic and
See also
Notes
- ^ "PHASIS - Colchian River-God of Greek Mythology". www.theoi.com. Retrieved 2023-07-12.
- ^ Lordkipanidze (2000), pp. 11–12.
- ^ ISBN 0-19-814099-1
- ^ "pheasant". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
- ^ a b c "Phasis". Encyclopaedia of the Hellenic World, Black Sea.
- ^ Lordkipanidze (2000), p. 31.
- ISBN 0-7099-4127-7.
- ^ a b Bury(1889), p. 458-462
- ^ a b Holmes(1905), p. 728-730
- ^ a b Lordkipanidze (2000), p. 48.
- ^ a b Lordkipanidze (2000), p. 50.
- ^ Richard J. A. Talbert et al. (2000), p. 1227.
References
- Bury, John Bagnell (1889), A History of the Later Roman Empire from Arcadius to Irene, Vol. I, MacMillan & Co., ISBN 978-1-4021-8369-0
- Holmes, William Gordon (1999), The age of Justinian and Theodora: a history of the sixth century A.D., vol. II, G. Bell and sons, ISBN 978-1-4212-5069-4
- Otar Lordkipanidze (2000), Phasis: The River and City in Colchis. Franz Steiner Verlag, ISBN 3-515-07070-2
- Richard J. A. Talbert et al. (ed., 2000), Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World. ISBN 0-691-04945-9.
- "Phasis". Encyclopaedia of the Hellenic World, Black Sea. Foundation of the Hellenic World. Retrieved 2013-02-17.
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