Grand Prince of Kiev (sometimes Grand Duke of Kiev) was the title of the Kievan prince and the ruler of Kievan Rus' from the 10th to 13th centuries. In the 13th century, Kiev became an appanage principality first of the Grand Prince of Vladimir and the Golden Horde governors, and later was taken over by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. According to some Ukrainian historians (i.e., Kanyhin, Tkachuk), Ptolemy's mention of Metropolis, a Sarmatian town on the Dnieper River, shows the ancient existence of Kiev. The name Dnieper is derived from Sarmatian (Iranian) Dānu apara "the river far away."