About Armenia

Map of ancient Armenia.

The Armenian civilization had its beginnings nearly 5,000 years ago and during the 3rd millenium BC. In the centuries following, the Armenians withstood invasions and nomadic migrations, creating a unique culture that blended Iranian social and political structures with Hellenic– and later Christian–literary traditions. For two millennia, independent Armenian states existed sporadically in the region between the northeastern corner of the Mediterranean Sea and the Caucasus Mountains, until the last medieval state was destroyed in the fourteenth century.

A landlocked country in modern times, Armenia was the smallest Soviet republic from 1920 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The future of an independent Armenia is clouded by limited natural resources and the prospect that the military struggle to unite the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region with the Republic of Armenia will be a long one.

The Armenians are an ancient people who speak an Indo-European language and have traditionally inhabited the border regions common to modern Armenia, Iran, and Turkey. They call themselves hai (from the name of Hayk, a legendary hero) and their country Haiastan. Their neighbors to the north, the Georgians, call them somekhi, but most of the rest of the world follows the usage of the ancient Greeks and refers to them as Armenians, a term derived according to legend from the Armen tribe. Thus the Russian word is armianin, and the Turkish is ermeni.

Early Armenian history - The Ancient Period

Armenia has been populated since prehistoric times, and has been proposed as the site of the Biblical Garden of Eden. Armenia lies in the highlands surrounding the Biblical mountains of Ararat, upon which Noah’s Ark came to rest after the flood. (Gen. 8:4). In Armeni Sumerian records written ca. 2,700 BC, tells us the story of the Great Flood and the rebirth of Life [the Tree of Life or the Garden [Partez - Paradise - the main motif in the Armenian-Hurrian Mitanni and Araratian reliefs] of Eden located in Armenia - the Land of Four Rivers. Archeologists continue to uncover evidence that Armenia and the Armenian Highlands was the earliest site of human civilization.
The earliest record identified with Armenians, is from an inscription which mentions Armani together with Ibla, as territories conquered by Naram-Sin (2300 BC) identified with an Akkadian colony in the Diarbekr region. To this day the Assyrians refer to Armenians by this form Armani. Another mention by Thutmose III of Egypt, mentions the people of Ermenen in 1446 BC, and says in their land “heaven rests upon its four pillars” (Thutmose was the first Pharoah to cross the Euphrates to reach the Armenian Highlands).[1] To this day Kurds and Turks refer to Armenians by Ermeni. From 10,000 BC to 1000 BC, tools and trinkets of copper, bronze and iron were commonly produced in Armenia and traded in neighbouring lands where those metals were less abundant.
Several states flourished in the area of Greater Armenia, including Aratta (Haik’s time), mentioned in Armenic Sumerian records (3rd millennium BC), the Hittite Empire (at the height of its power), Mitanni (South-Western historic Armenia) and Hayasa-Azzi (15th - 12th cc BC), and in the Iron Age the Nairi people (12th - 9th cc BC) and the Kingdom of Ararat (Biblical Ararat) (9th - 6th cc BC), each of the aformentioned nations and tribes participated in the ethnogenesis of the Armenian people. Yerevan, the modern capital of Armenia, was founded in 782 BC by the Urartian king Argishti I.

Aryan migrations pointing off the starting point: Armenia.

Aryan migrations pointing off the starting point: Armenia.Scholars V.V.Ivanov and Tamaz Gamreklide place the Indo-European (Aryan) homeland in Armenian Highland, postulating the Armenian language as an in situated development of a 3rd millennium BC Proto-Indo-European language. The first major state in the region was the kingdom of Aratta. The word Armani - an early form of Armen-Armin [Armen or Arman denotes the national affiliation, as with many cultures standing for the particular nation thus, the God AR being the primary deity in the Indo-European pantheon - thus AR MAN denotes — Men of Ar or Children of Ar, again initially AR standing for ARAREL-ARARICH [hence Ar-Ar-At the Place of ARAR] — Create-Creator, also Sun, Light, Life and Love.

The modern Armenian name for the country was Hayk, or Hayastan. Haya, combined with the suffix ‘-stan’ (land). Hayk was one of the great Armenian leaders after whom the The Land of Hayk was named. He is said to have settled at the foot of Mount Ararat, traveled to assist in building the Tower of Babel, and, after his return, defeated the Babylonian king Bel (believed by some researchers to be Nimrod) in 2492 BC near the mountains of Lake Van, in the southwestern part of historic Armenia (present-day eastern Turkey). Nairi, meaning “land of rivers”, used to be an ancient name for Armenia and Armenians, used by Assyrians and Egyptians.

Greek historians first mentioned the Armenians in the mid-fifth century B.C. Ruled for many centuries by the Persians, Armenia became a buffer state between the Greeks and Romans to the west and the Persians and Arabs of the Middle East. It reached its greatest size and influence under King Tigran II, also known as Tigranes or Tigran the Great (r. 95-55 B.C.). During his reign, Armenia stretched from the Mediterranean Sea northeast to the Mtkvari River (called the Kura in Azerbaijan) in present-day Georgia (see fig. 5). Tigran and his son, Artavazd II, made Armenia a center of Hellenic culture during their reigns.

By 30 B.C., Rome conquered the Armenian Empire, and for the next 200 years Armenia often was a pawn of the Romans in campaigns against their Central Asian enemies, the Parthians. However, a new dynasty, the Arsacids, took power in Armenia in 53 A.D. under the Parthian king, Tiridates I, who defeated Roman forces in 62 A.D. Rome’s Emperor Nero then conciliated the Parthians by personally crowning Tiridates king of Armenia. For much of its subsequent history, Armenia was not united under a single sovereign but was usually divided between empires and among local Armenian rulers.