Aydoğan | 35around the region of Kastamonu (Byzantine Castamon), conquering Mankuriya
(Byzantine Gangra, modern-day Çankırı), or Maɇmuriyye, which refers not to
Byzantine Amorium, as in the Battalname, but to Ankara, identified by the com-
piler Arif Ali as Engüriya.
The conquests in Rum in the Danişmendname came along with another
process—the adaptation of certain place names into Turkish. Some names of
historical figures and places were distorted by phonetic adaptation and during
transcription of the epics after centuries of oral transmission. Some place names,
especially those of places conquered by the Muslim Turks, were repeatedly—and
probably consciously—recorded side by side with the new Turkified names. A
typical example would be as follows:
Therefrom Melik Danişmend said: “Let us reach those provinces and keep
walking towards Dükiyye (Dokia) that is Tokat and Sisiyye (Komana) that is
Gümenek and Harsanosiyye (Neocaesareia) that is Niksar, and in the direc-
tion of Canik, Harşana that is Amasiyye (Amasya) and Samiyye (Amisus) that
is Samsun and Sinobiyye that is Sınab (Sinop), and Karkariyye (Zela, modern-
day Zile). And let me walk in the direction of Kaşan also known as Turhal.
With the will of God Almighty I shall conquer them all.”Most of the conquests of Melik Danişmend as recorded in the Daniş-
mendname can be verified by other sources of the era. However, certain events
in the story were transported to a different geographical location than where
they actually occurred, which Irène Mélikoff attributes to interventions by the
second compiler-scribe, Arif Ali of Tokat, who relocated some events to areas
more familiar to him. For example, shortly after his conquest of Tokat, Melik
Danişmend gained possession of two monasteries on the hills facing Tokat:
Deryanos (Church of Saint John the Baptist) and Haç (Armenian HaçɆitun,
meaning “Home of the Holy Cross”). However, these two great symbols of the
Armenia n Church were not in Tokat but near Sivas. Arif Ali retained the mem-
ory of the famous victories of the Arabo-Byzantine confrontation but moved
them to a more familiar setting.
Melik Danişmend’s last campaign was the siege of the fortress of Harkümbed,
which according to the Danişmendname was near Niksar in the direction of
Canik. A coalition of Armenian, Georgian, and Byzantine forces organized
by the ruler of Ta ra b u z a n (Byzantine Trebizond, modern-day Trabzon), Gavras
(identified as Theodore Gabras, the military commander and duke of Trebi-
zond), confronted Melik Danişmend, who decided to go back to Niksar. But be-
cause he had been wounded seventeen times, he bled to death before he arrived.
The Saltukname continues the story almost from where the Danişmendname
leaves off. Sarı Saltuk started his gaza career in Sinop, which neighbored Canik
in the west. From Sinop he attacked the infidels in the Black Sea region. Just like