Goght'n (; also mentioned in sources as Goght'an, Գողթան, and spelled Gołt'n by modern scholars) was a canton (gavaṛ) located in the province of Vaspurakan in historical Armenia. Its borders roughly corresponded to the modern Ordubad Rayon of Nakhichevan, Azerbaijan. Goght'n was well known for winemaking, the quality of its grape and fruit orchards. The region also was the birthplace of a number of prominent Armenian gusans (minstrels). The ancestors of the renowned twentieth-century Armenian composer and music ethnologist Komitas Vardapet were originally from Goght'n. Some of the region's oldest towns and villages have survived to this day, including Jugha (now Julfa) and Ordvat' (modern-day Ordubad). History Early to medieval According to Movses Khorenatsi, King Tigran Ervanduni (of the Orontid line) of Armenia, settled his wife and his daughters in an area to the east of (Ararat) and up to Goght'n, in Tambat, Oskiokh, Djaghguyn and other settlements giving them also three towns – Khram, Jugha and Khoshakunik, and on the other bank of the river (Arax) all the fields from Ajanakan up to the Nakhchavan Fortress. Mesrop Mashtots', the inventor of the Armenian alphabet, is assumed to have lived and worked in the town of Msrvanis (Mesropavan) during his stay in Goght'n. The Armenian princes of Goght'n probably had branched off from the family in Syunik' and had their own regional bishop. The second Gahnamak, or Military List, notes that the princes were expected during time of war to furnish 500 cavalry to help defend the Kingdom of Armenia's southern gate (that is, its southern border). The seventh-century Armenian atlas Ashkharhats'uyts''' mentions Goght'n as the 31st of the 35 districts of Vaspurakan. Its last hereditary Armenian prince, Vahan, who had been brought up in Damascus as a Muslim, converted back to his Christian faith after returning to Armenia. For this act of apostasy, he was seized by the Muslims and sent to Syria, where he was tortured and executed in 737. Sometime in the early tenth century, during the tenure of the emir of Iranian Azerbaijan Yusuf ibn Abi'l-Saj, Goght'n fell to a Muslim emir called, by the contemporary Armenian historian Hovhannes Draskhanakertts'i, Agarene, probably from the Arab Shaybāni tribe. Goght'n may have been referred to at this time as "Kilit" by the Arabs. When the fortress of Yernjak fell to Yusuf in 912/14, Yusuf awarded it to the emir, whose successors sought to expand their landholdings through the