HASANKEYF

Hasankeyf was an ancient settlement that has borne many names from a variety of cultures during its history. The variety of these names is compounded by the many ways that non-Latin alphabets such as Syriac and Arabic can be transliterated. Underlying these many names is much continuity between cultures in the basic identification of the site.

The city of Ilānṣurā mentioned in the Akkadian and Northwest Semitic texts of the Mari Tablets (1800–1750 BC) may possibly be Hasankeyf, although other sites have also been proposed.[7] By the Roman period, the fortified town was known in Latin as Cephe, Cepha or Ciphas, a name that appears to derive from the Syriac word ܟܐܦܐ (kefa or kifo), meaning "rock". As the eastern and western portions of the Roman Empire split around AD 330, Κιφας (Kiphas) became formalized as the Greek name for this Byzantine bishopric.

Following the Arab conquest of 640, the town became known under the Arabic name حصن كيفا (Ḥiṣn Kayfa). "Hisn" means "fortress" in Arabic, so the name overall means "rock fortress". Western reports about the town before the 20th century refer to it by various names that are transliterated from Arabic or Ottoman Turkish. The most popular of these were Hisn Kaifa and Hisn Kayfa, although a wide variety of others are used including Ḥiṣn Kaifā, Ḥiṣn Kayfā, Ḥiṣn Kayfâ, Ḥiṣn Kīfā, Ḥiṣn Kîfâ, Hisn Kayf, Husn Kayfa, Hassan-Keyf, Hosnkeif and Husunkeïf. Two early Armenian historians list additional names for the town: Harsenkev (Armenian: Հարսնքվ) is recorded by Matthew of Edessa (Mesrob Eretz) and Kentzy is recorded by P. Lucas Ingigian.[8]

As part of Atatürk's Reforms in the 1920s and '30s, many place names were modified to more Turkish-sounding forms and the town's official name was changed to Hasankeyf. This version appears occasionally in foreign reports in the mid 20th-century but only becomes prevalent after about 1980.

source : wikipedia