Origin of the Armenians

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Haik, the legendary ancestor of the Armenians.
Haik, the legendary ancestor of the Armenians.

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Name
Hayk
Hayasa-Azzi
Nairi
Kingdom of Urartu
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Orontid Armenia
Kingdom of Sophene
Artaxiad Dynasty
Kingdom of Commagene
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Marzpanate Period
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Kingdom of Vaspurakan
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Democratic Republic of Armenia
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Timeline of Armenian history
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The origin of the Armenians is not decisively certain and has been explained by several scholarly theories.

Contents

[edit] Traditional Armenian explanation

The earliest surviving Armenian writings about their own origin explain that the Armenian people are descendants of Japheth, a son of Noah. As Mt. Ararat, which was historically in the kingdom of Armenia, is held to be the site on which Noah's ark landed, his family settled in Armenia, and later moved to Babylon. Haik, a descendant of Japheth who is said to have been the leader of the Armenian people, rebelled against the Babylonians and returned to the lands of Armenia. This legendary account reflects the Christian beliefs of the Armenians after 301 AD, as they favored an explanation of their origins that gave them a prominent place in the history of the Bible.

[edit] Khorenatsi’s theory

Khorenatsi’s theory that the Armenians descended from Torgom (Togarmah was the Son of Gomer, Grandson Japheth, Great Grandson of Noah) is consistent and derived from, Biblical references to the House of Togarmah, a land known for its horses in the extreme north. Armenia would have been the north hinterlands for the Mesopotamian world of the Old Testament, and the Armenian Highlands were renowned for horse breeding and horsemanship throughout ancient times. [1]

Some scholars believe, for example, that the earliest mention of the Armenians is in the Akkadian inscriptions dating to the 28th-27th centuries BC, in which the Armenians are referred to as the sons of Haya, after the regional god of the Armenian Highlands. [2]

[edit] Ancient Records

The name Armenia is an exonym, the Armenian language name for the country being Hayk‘ (see Haik for a discussion of that name). Its first unambiguous application as the ethnonym of the Armenians is in a late 6th century BC Old Persian inscription, as Armina, and a few decades later, Herodotus, in his review of the troops opposing the Greeks, wrote that “the Armenians were armed like the Phrygians, being Phrygian settlers" [3]. Whether his comment described all Armenians as Phrygian settlers, or only those warriors he happened to see, is still unclear. Xenophon, a Greek general waging war against the Persians, describes many aspects of Armenian village life and hospitality. He relates that the people spoke a language that to his ear sounded like the language of the Persians.[4].

There are, however, surprisingly early (Bronze Age) attestations of what appears to be the same name as a geographical term in both Mesopotamian and Egyptian sources. The earliest is from an inscription which mentions Armânum (also read Armani[5]) together with Ibla (Ebla) as territories conquered by Naram-Sin (23rd century BC)[6] identified with an Akkadian colony in the Diarbekr region.[7] To this day the Assyrians refer to Armenians by this form Armani.

A Babylonian inventory of the Akkadian Empire locates the land Armanî next to Lullubi[8] Another mention by pharoah Thutmose III in the 33rd year of his reign (1446 BC) as the people of Ermenen ("Region of the Minni"), and says in their land "heaven rests upon its four pillars".[9] The Kurdish and Turkish form referring to Armenians is Ermenin.

Minni (מנּי) is also a Biblical name of the region, appearing in Jeremiah (Jeremiah 51:27) alongside Ararat and Ashchenaz, probably the same as the Minnai of Assyrian inscriptions,[10] perhaps corresponding to the Minyans.[11] Armenia is interpreted by some as ḪARMinni, that is, "the mountainous region of the Minni".[12]

There have been further speculations as to the existence Bronze Age tribe (of an ethnonym, as opposed to a toponym) of the Armens (Armans, Armani; Armenian: Արմեններ Armenner, Առամեններ Aṙamenner), either identical to or forming a subset of the Hayasa-Azzi[13][14] Etymological speculation inspired by the Armenian hypothesis of Indo-European origins connects the name with the Ar- root meaning light, sun, fire found in Arev (Sun), Arpi (Light of heaven), Ararich (God or Creator), Ararat (place of Arar), Aryan, Arta etc.[15] Alternatively, the name has been claimed as a "variant" of Urmani, a e living near Lake Van and near Lake Urmia according to an inscription of Menousas.[16] According to an increasing number of scholars, Indo-European presents was in the Armenian Highland since at least the 3rd millenium BC. These scholars place the Indo-Europpean homeland in Armenia, located where the Kuro-Araxes culture showed Indo-European presents at the same time. [17]

Armenian tradition makes Armenak or Aram the great-grandson of Haik. Other authors[18] connect the Persian name Armin, [19] Armin is also a contemporary Armenian name, its feminine being Armin'e. The Persian inscription referring to Armenia is in this form, as Armina.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Strabo, Geography, XI.14.9.
  2. ^ Artak Movsisyan, Hnaguyn Petut’yunĕ Hayastanum–Aratta (Yerevan: Depi yerkir 1992) 41.
  3. ^ Herodotus, History, 7.73.
  4. ^ Xenophon, Anabasis, IV.v.2-9.
  5. ^ Artak Movsisyan, "Aratta: The ancient Kindgom of Armenia," Yerevan, 1992. p. 184
  6. ^ surviving in an early Babylonian copy, ca. 2200 BC, URI 275, lines I.7, 13; II.4; III.3, 30.
  7. ^ Horace Abram Rigg, Jr., A Note on the Names Armânum and Urartu, Journal of the American Oriental Society (1937).
  8. ^ no. 92 of Schroeder's 1920 Keilschrifttexte aus Assur; W. F. Albright, A Babylonian Geographical Treatise on Sargon of Akkad's Empire, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 45. (1925), p. 212.
  9. ^ International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, 1915[1]; Eric H. Cline and David O'Connor (eds.) Thutmose III, University of Michigan, 2006, ISBN 978-0472114672.[page # needed]
  10. ^ International Standard Bible Encyclopedia s.v. Minni
  11. ^ Smith's Bible Dictionary[2]
  12. ^ Easton’s Bible Dictionary
  13. ^ Rafael Ishkhanyan, "Illustrated History of Armenia," Yerevan, 1989
  14. ^ Elisabeth Bauer. Armenia: Past and Present (1981), p. 49
  15. ^ T. V. Gamkrelidze and V. V. Ivanov, The Early History of Indo-European (aka Aryan) Languages, Scientific American, March 1990; James P. Mallory, "Kuro-Araxes Culture", Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997.
  16. ^ Vahan Kurkjian, History of Armenia, Michigan 1968[3]
  17. ^ James P. Mallory, "Kuro-Araxes Culture", Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997.; T. V. Gamkrelidze and V. V. Ivanov, The Early History of Indo-European (aka Aryan) Languages, Scientific American, March 1990
  18. ^ Hovick Nersessian, Highlands of Armenia, 1998, Los Angeles
  19. ^ Parsiana, Book of Iranian Names[4]: a dweller of the Garden of Eden, a son of king Kobad
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