Cengerli

Mitford (2018 pages 315-317) argues persuasively for a Roman fort at Cengerli. This view is echoed, based in part on Mitford's earlier publications, in Sinclair 2020 (p. 216). The fort was probably garrisoned, at least for a period, by the Cohors I Thracum Syriaca as demonstrated by an inscription of one of its decuriones found there in the 1980s, seen by Mitford in 1989, and definitively published for the first time in Mitford 2018 (pp. 533-34 no. 54; pace Bennett 2010 pp. 429-432 whence AE 2010 1672, incorrectly reporting the findspot as nearby Horopol/Kırkbulak).  In the Barrington Atlas directory for Map 64 (published in 2000 but compiled in 1996), Mitford suggests the site might also have served as a "signal station." He has more to say about this in 2018: Cengerli Kale, a large natural rock outcropping with extensive visibility down the valley, has cuttings (including stairs) that are consistent with use as a site for a "Urartian fire temple" and, possibly, for beacon fires in the Roman period (pp. 315-317 with figures 197 and 198). Cengerli's proximity to fragments of Roman roads, as well as subsequent caravan and multi-period salt-transport roads, highlight its value as a potential garrison site.

For the Barrington Atlas, Mitford did not hazard a guess at an ancient name for Cengerli. In 2018 (p. 317), he rejects "Carsaga" and "Olotoedariza." As candidates, he considers "Caesarea" (Pliny mentions three of them in Armenia), as well as Ptolemy's "Charax" and "Chorsabia," before concluding: "identification with Chorsabia is not entirely fanciful." He also, more tentatively, considers Ptolemy's "Tapoura." Sinclair does not address these possibilities, theorizing instead that "Haris"/"Haraz" (possibly variant names for the same place from the Peutinger Map and the Antonine Itinerary) should be considered. Sinclair's argument hinges on seeing some linguistic relationship between "Haris"/"Haraz" and "Horopol" (the old Armenian name of a village near Cengerli) and on assuming a copy error as to the order of road connections in the Peutinger map or its lost sources (pp. 215-217).