THE NAMES GENESIS OF THE SOROCA CITY AND THE CITIES ON THE DNIESTER RIVER IN CARTOGRAPHIC SOURCES

• Main Author: Vitalie IAŢIUC
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Academy of Sciences of Moldova 2018-10-01
• Series: Akademos: Revista de Ştiinţă, Inovare, Cultură şi Artă
• Subjects: soroca; orhei; carsidava; constantine vii porphyrogenites; sacacatai; fra mauro; siracio; andreas walsperger; olchionia; d. cantemir; orihow
• Online Access: http://akademos.asm.md/files/141-150.pdf

The oldest geographical reference to the settlement on the site of the modern Soroca city, under the name Carsidava, is in Ptolemy’s Geography, published in the middle of the second century AD. As a hypothesis, the author supposes that Soroca, under the name Sacacatai, was mentioned in 948 in the book of Byzantine Emperor Constantine the 7th Porphyrogenites. On the map made in 1448 by Andreas Walsperger we found here Olhyona named settlement, which will appear as Olchionia near the name Sroka, as a reference to its older name, on two other maps published in 1665 and 1685. These 3 maps eliminate all doubts about the existence of Olchionia on the site of Soroca city. The next occurrence of Soroca under the name Siracio found on the map of the Venetian cartographer Fra Mauro, published in 1450. Soroca represented on the map as a fortress. Thus, we can say that in 1450 Soroca known as a fortress for the geographers of Europe. Since 1467, on the world maps the settlement appears under different names: Scapenos, Sora, Sroka, Stoca, Seroca and Sorca. Studying old maps, the author proposes a hypothesis about the Orihow town, which once existed at the confluence of the river Răut with the Dniester. To confirm this hypothesis are presented data from old and modern maps, aerial photographs and toponymal facts of this region.