Nizhnij Arkhyz: the Name of a Medieval City

The study is devoted to establishing the name of the capital of Western Alania in Xth–XIIIth centuries, the center of the Alanian Metropolis of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the important point on the route of the Great Silk Road, on the site of which the Nizhny Arkhyz settlement is now located. The information of the medieval Arab scholars about the trade route through Eastern Black Sea region and the Caucasus, was considered as the main source. The historical-archaeological analysis of information from Arabic manuscripts, within the framework of which the source data were considered in the context of the current archaeological paradigm of the North Caucasus of the 10th-13th centuries, allowed to reject the hypothesis about the Black Sea localization of the Alanian cities mentioned by Arab geographers, as well as the view of them as conditional toponyms that do not reflect the realities. The information from Arabic manuscripts was compared with archaeological data on the well-known trade connecting the cities of Alania and the Transcaucasian ports. The authors came to the conclusion that the capital of Western Alania was mentioned by al-Idrisi under the name Askasiyya, and by Ibn Sa'id al-Maghribi and Abu-l-Fida this city was called Arkashiyya. This name of the medieval city, recorded in Arabic, is consonant with the modern name of the area Arkhyz.