Tüfekçi, Dernekpazarı

Tüfekçi is a village in Dernekpazarı District, Trabzon Province, Turkey. Its older name was Arsela. Perhaps coincidentally, a village named Arşela existed on the east coast of the Black Sea, but it may also be seen as a mark of the Thracians / Pelasgians. Arsela is a place that was mentioned in a panegyric text written for the Thracian god Sabasios. It takes the form of Arselenos on another epitaph, which was found in Nova Zagora. Ivan Duridanov has claimed that the river names Arsio, Arse in Old Prussia, Arsen and Arsia in Latvia and Arsina in Germany are derivation of the root ors-, ers “(for water) flow, damp” in the Indo-European language family (Hindi arşati) and ars- in the Thracian language. He connected these words to place names such as Arsa, Arsaza, Arsena, Arsila in Dacia (an ancient region in Romania covering territories north and west of Arsela) (Duridanov, 1976). Nevertheless, as a variation of the word arhi, it might have been used as the first of a village group, for the Greek arhi (αρχή) “the first” is pronounced as arşi in the Black Sea dialect.

References

* Özhan Öztürk "Karadeniz: Ansiklopedik Sözlük". 2 Vol. Heyamola Publishing. Istanbul. 2005. ISBN 975-6121-00-9.