Data question-Armenia

[bandrow]

Greetings,

I received some specimens of Phytoecia from Armenia and I'm trying to clarify the locality. I have not been able to find the locale name on the web - can someone here help? The data reads "Armenia, Bongcherd" as best as I can tell. The collector is "I. Martunenko" - it would be superb if he himself is on here to clarify this!

Thanks!
Bandrow

[sleepymoose]

Hello Bandrow,
can you put a photo of the label?
If you then agree, I can post it on an Italian forum asking for help.

Regards
Carlo

[bandrow]

Hi sleepymoose.

Sounds like a good idea - thanks for your suggestion. I'll get it imaged as soon as possible and post it here...

Thanks!
Bandrow

[bandrow]

Greetings,

Here is the card with the data in question... ignore the annotation 'Phytoecia large' - that is my addition...

Thanks for any help anyone can provide - I have not been able to find any locale remotely similar to "Bongcherd" - if I'm even reading that correctly!

Cheers!

Bandrow

[arch]

This is a tough one. To start with, the sixth letter is likely b. "Berd" means fortress in Armenian and is part of some Armenian place names, e.g. Amberd. The fifth letter might be a, considering how a is written in "Armenia". This gives us "Bongaberd". Of all Armenian place names I know of the closest one to "Bongaberd" is Voghchaberd.

[bandrow]

Hi Arch,

Thanks - initially this looked pretty straight-forward, but when I searched it, it turned out to be a real mystery. Maybe I'll get lucky and the "I. Martunenko" will see this and solve the puzzle for me!

Cheers!
Bandrow

[sleepymoose]

Hi Bandrow,
sorry for the long time elapsed, but only yesterday on the Italian forum an Armenian (I believe an entomologist...his name is Vahe Martirosyan) showed up and wrote this answer:
"Hello,
The locality is Voghjaberd (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voghjaberd)
Regards,
Vahe"

[bandrow]

Hi Sleepymoose,

Thank you for posting that on the other forum - it is nice to get a more accurate spelling for the locality. I will put a label reading " Voghjaberd" on the specimen, but will also put an additional label with the spelling as on the card, with a short explanation - that way I'll retain the original data as well as the suspected correct data. Better to have both spellings, than make an assumption and get it wrong...

Thanks again!
Bandrow