New Year Armenia Pagan

New Year In Ancient Armenia

The ancient Armenians had been celebrating the coming of the New Year on the 21st of March. That date is also the birthday of the Armenian pagan God Vahagn. On this day the Armenians prepared huge feasts to welcome and celebrate the zenith of the nature.

During the 18th Century, January 1st was accepted as a beginning of the New Year. In spite of this change, Armenians in some regions of the country  (Syunik, Artsakh and Utik) continued to celebrate New Year on Navasard (Navasard is a first month of Armenian chronology). Today almost all Armenians celebrate the New Year on January 1st.

Armenian New Year 2012

New Year in Yerevan

The New Year celebration is one of the most loved  holidays for Armenians all over the world.

Armenian Families do their best to save money for New Year table. People even do more than they can afford, since it’s believed that “You’ll spend the year just the way you’ve welcomed it” and also people will be welcoming guests the following days, so the table has to be as “rich” as possible.

The preparations start weeks before the New Year. People start attacking the food stores and supermarkets, trying to do the shopping beforehand, since the last days many things become more expensive (others like to leave everything till the last moment and the shop owners are earning on it).

Armenian New Year Table

Armenian new year table

Armenian New Year Table

armenian table

armenian dolma Tolma

One of the most important Armenian New Year table “accessories” is the pork leg (Khozi bud, Խոզի բուդ), but some families also use turkey, little pig or some fish.

Other traditional things for the table are meat snacks (ershik, basturma, sujukh etc), various salads (“mayraqaghaqayin, snkov, lobiov etc”, “olivier”, chicken breast with nuts or mushrooms and other), …

On the table you can find pastry (mostly eastern ones – with sweet honey syrup and nuts, since they can stay eatable longer because there’s no milk cream), fruits (orange, apples, pomegranate, bananas, grapefruits, Apples etc),   various nuts (pistachio, hazelnuts, almonds, walnuts, etc…), and the sweet sudjukh – walnuts, threaded and soaked in thick syrup of grape or mulberry juice. Dried sweet snacks from all kinds of fruits (sometimes also vegetables) is also a must-have for the table.

Parts of the traditional New Year’s meal like various dried fruits, raisins, different kinds of nuts, gahin and others would have been previously prepared, but the pastries, cakes and harisan would have been prepared on the 30th of December.

One of the most important ant interesting traditions of Armenian new year is Darin (Gata). Darin is a big flat bread, which has a coin hidden in it. The person who found the piece with the coin in it was considered the ‘lucky’ member of the family for the New Year. But the most remarkable meal is the dolma, which is prepared with rice and grape leaves.

Armenian Christmas – January 6

Armenian Christmas

Armenian Christmas is being celebrated on Jan. 6. On the eve, people usually go to the church and bring consecrated fire from there to clean their house from dark spirits. On the Christmas day families gather to eat rice (plav) prepared with dried fruits or raisins, eat fish and drink wine. No meat is allowed.
The next day of the main church holidays (including Christmas) is called “merelots” and that day people visit the graves of their relatives. From 2008, all the “merelots” days are declared non-working and are replaced by the nearest Saturdays in the week. Almost all holiday.

Persian decadence

The centralized government of Darius III began to disintegrate in the fourth century B.C. The provincial satraps were

Darius III

striving for independence, and the Greeks were looking with covetous eyes upon the wealth of the East. Philip of Macedonia, after unifying all Greece under his sway, was ready to embark upon an expedition against the Persians when he was assassinated. His son Alexander (336B.C-323 B.C.), overthrew the Persian Empire in three great battles, and at Babylon in 331, proclaimed himself sole ruler of the united Macedonian-Persian empire. But only eight years later, Alexander, after expanding his conquest to the borders of India, died at the age of thirty-three. Three of his generals thereupon divided his new empire among themselves, one centering his rule in Macedonia, another in Egypt, while the third had has capital at Antioch, Syria, which was founded by the general Seleucus Nicator (the Conqueror).

Greek culture

Alexander, a pupil of Aristotle, had pursued an ideal, the welding of Asia and Europe by the introduction of Greek culture into the East. He had exchanged groups of inhabitants between the two continents, had built new cities in the East and populated them with Greek colonists. He encouraged intermarriage between the two racial elements, himself taking as his bride a Bactrian princess, Roxana. It was thus that Hellenic culture literature, science and philosophy ” was diffused through Asia. This intellectual intercourse, with its accompaniment of extended commercial connections, gave impetus to the development of crafts and productivity. Cities sprang up and quickly attained opulence. Colossal amounts of gold and silver, captured from the treasury of the Persian kings by Alexander, now came into business circulation.

New era for the Armens

The Empire of Alexander the Great

Through the Macedonian conquests and the subsequent Seleucid domination in Hither Asia, there opened for the Armens a new era of political and economic advancement, which lasted 140В years from В 330 to 190В B.C., at which latter date the kingdoms of Artaxias (Artashes) and Zariadres (Zareh) were founded. The events of this period are not clearly recorded by national and foreign historians, but the study of Greek and Roman chronicles is helping to solve many problems and to correct erroneous assumptions hitherto adopted by many authors. The occupation of Armenia by Alexander’s forces, for example, as related by Strabo and others, should be confined to Armenia Minor, whose government had been entrusted by Alexander to the Persian satrap Mithrines (Mihran). As to Armenia proper, it had by that time its own governor, Orondes-Erouand, who led the Armen army against the Macedonians in the battle of Arbela (331В B.C.), which was the death-blow to the Persian Empire.

The kingdom of Cappadocia had been reduced by the Macedonian commander Eumenes. “But Ariarat, the son of the slain king,” says Diodorus, “escaped to Armenia in company with a few men, and later on, procuring soldiers from Ardoates, King of the Armens, fought and killed the Macedonian general, Amuntas, quickly expelled the Macedonians from the country and regained his father’s kingdom.” Reinach and other Armenists have proposed to read the above name Ardoates as Artavazdes. Marquart and Manandian prefer the reading Artoandas (Orontes, Erouand). The date of the founding of the Cappadocian kingdom through the aid of the Armen king must have been about 270В B.C.

Under the Seleucidae

The Seleucid empire stretched from the Hellespont to India. Armenia Major, Armenia Minor and Sophene maintained at that time their autonomous identity by paying money tribute to the suzerain and giving him military aid when called upon. Armenia Major then included a part of the Armenian plateau — only four of the fifteen provinces of later date, namely, Fourth Armenia, Aghtzniq, Tourouberan and Airarat. In the third centuryВ B.C., the city of Armavir, in Aiaratat, was the capital of the Erouandian dynasty, known to Khorenatsi as the Haikazants, Haikazian or Araratian. Greek annals tell us of the existence under the Seleucids of native “kings” of Armenia Minor and Sophene. One of them, whose name is unknown, had, according to Memnon of Heraclea,Вє tendered shelter and aid to Ziaelas, son of the King of Bithynia, and enabled him to occupy his father’s throne, which he did from 250 toВ 228.

Another Greek author, Polianus,Вє says that the Seleucian Antiochus Hierax, in revolt against his brother, King Kallinikos, entered Armenia through Mesopotamia and took refuge at the court of Arsabes, the King, inВ 230В B.C. This monarch may be identified with Arsham, King of Sophene, who founded the city of Arshamashat, in the so‑called Beautiful Plain, between the Euphrates and Tigris. The defeat suffered by AntiochusВ III inВ 190В B.C. was a signal for uprising in all nations subject to or threatened by the Seleucid regime. The Armenian lands, though not included in the Seleucid empire, had been subjected to Hellenistic influence. The coins minted in the Armenian area during that period bear inscriptions in Greek. The province of Sophene, particularly that part adjacent to the northern border of Mesopotamia, near the international trade route, had all the advantages necessary to make it a great center. The fortress of Damissa, on the western bank of the Euphrates, was a halting station for caravans moving to or from Persia.

As another emporium in Sophene, its capital city, Gargatiokert, has been mentioned by Pliny and Strabo. Marquart proposes that the name be corrected by Argatiokerta, assuming that its founder was Argatias, son of King Zariadres of Sophene. The site of the city, according to Marquart, may be found in the ruins of the fort of Anggh, near the modern Egil or ArghanaВ Su, one of the sources of the Tigris River.

Armenia as Xenophon saw it

ANABASIS – By Xenophon - In this Ancient book you can find materials about Ancient Armenia and Armenians.

Retreat of the ten thousand

Greek mercenary soldiers, ten thousand in number, who had been aiding the younger Cyrus of Persia against his brother Artaxerxes, returned home in 401 B.C., after the defeat and death of Cyrus at Cunaxa. On their way back, they passed through Armenia, and the Anabasis (going up), written by Xenophon, their leader, contains some valuable information about that country. Their precise itinerary has not been definitely traced, but according to the generally accepted theory, they crossed the Centrites (Kentrides) River, the modern Bohtan‑Su, north of Til, reached the Teleboas River, the modern Kara‑Su, in the plain of Mush, and then the Euphrates near Manazkert, fording it where it was only knee-deep. Thence they marched to Olti, the country of the Taochci (the Armenian province of Taiq), south of Kars. From the “great rich and populous city” of Cumnias, in the Scythian country (the more modern Cumri, still later Alexandropol and now Leninakan), they proceeded through the area of Zarishat and south of Ardahan, and finally through the mountains of the Macroni and Kolchi tribes to the Black Sea port of Trebizond.

Armenia is described by Xenophon as a vast and rich country, with Orondas(Orontes) (Erouand, Ervanduni) ruling as satrap and Tiribaz asuparkos or vice-governor. In Xenophon’s time the Armens had not yet occupied the plain of Ararat, which was then inhabited by Saspeirs, Alarodians (Urarteans) and the oldest native tribes. The Kartuchi (Korduq of the Armenian geography), living in the south of the Centries, were a warlike people, not subjects of the Persians. They and the Armens were in almost continuous conflict, which, says Xenophon, explains why there were no villages in existence on the right bank of the Centrides, in the vicinity of modern Serd.

Armen kinship with Khald-Urarteans

The Kartuchi were a sedentary people, with a comparatively high degree of civilization. Their dwellings were described by the Greek soldiers as elegant and furnished with many copper utensils. They had plenty of provisions and wine kept in cemented cisterns. According to Strabo, they were skilled architects, experts in the tactics of besieging fortresses. Their arms consisted of bows and slings. The bows were one and a half yards long, and the arrows more than a yard. This mode of life does not harmonize with cattle-growing nomadic people, such as the Kurds. The Armens therefore, thinks Marquart, must have been kindred of the Khald-Urarteans. The army of Orondas, says Xenophon, besides Armens, included Mards and Khaldian mercenaries. The latter were a doughty people, noted for their long shields and spears. The Khaldian soldiers of Orondas are considered to have been the inhabitants of Sassoun and the Khoyt Mountains, who maintained their independence until their assimilation with the Armens. As to the mercenary Mards, they were, according to Herodotus, an Iranian nomadic tribe, to be identified, in Marquart’s opinion, with the modern Kurds. The tenth century Arabian historian Masoudi states that the Kurds acknowledged as their ancestor the chieftain Kurd, the son of Mard. In Armenian history the Kurds have been known as the “Mar people.”

The district of Mardistan, in historic Armenia, corresponds to Artaz, west of the modern Maku, South Iran. The district of Mardali (Mardaghi) must have been located to the south of Erzerum, north of the Bingöl sources. The Mards of this section of the country were evidently immigrants from the South, says Adontz. The bulk of the tribe occupied one of the southern areas of Vaspurakan (Van), near the upper course of the Centrides River. Xenophon mentioned particularly the extremely fierce and hardy Chalyb tribe, called Chaldaioi by Strabo, living in the Pontic Mountains, and mostly engaged in iron mining and forging. (The Greek marchers covered the distance through this coastal area — 50 parasangs or 150 miles — in seven days.) Several authors classify this people as being of the same stock as the Khaldi-Urarteans. The Taochi and the Phasian tribes, neighbors of the Chalybs, who likewise offered stiff resistance to the Greeks, are represented in the Taiq and Pasian districts of Armenia.

 The above-mentioned tribes and several others, including the Kimmerian-Scythian settlers from southern Russia, dating from the eighth century B.C., were all independent of Persia. Scythian tribes, the Saspeirs of Herodotus, had occupied considerable areas extending from Colchis to Media — around modern Nakhjavan and as far as Kars, Leninakan and the plain of Ararat. Alongside the Kimmerians and Scythians should be listed the Sarmatian tribe, which includes the Siraqs and the Gogs, after whom the Armenian provinces of Shirak and Gougarq seem to have been named. The Mesoch-Mushkians, the Outians and the Pactians were also among the inhabitants of the Armenian plateau, each having its own language or dialect, and particular kind of social life and culture. They were all eventually assimilated with the Armens, adding their numbers to the larger elements from the Khaldi and the Hittites.

Armen economics and commerce

Despite the agreement entered into between Tiribaz and the Greek chieftains, some of their soldiers “insolently” burned some of the villages where they were to stop. They even had the audacity to capture the tent of Tiribaz — who, relying on the treaty, seems to have been unprepared — and carried away his silver-footed bedstead and his cups, as well as his bakers and cup-bearers (Xenophon).

Finding the villages evacuated, the Greeks spent seven days in sumptuous eating and drinking. “The tables everywhere were loaded with the meats of lamb, goat, pig, veal and chicken, as well as bread of barley and wheat. They drank beer from a great jar, sucking it through a tube.” The horses of Armenia, says Xenophon, were smaller than those of Persia, but livelier. Being told that horses were sacrificed to the sun, Xenophon gave his old horse, in exchange for a foal, to a village chief, to be sacrificed, after being fattened.

Land of plenty

Besides plenty of wheat, barley and cereals, the Armen villages had in store raisins, perfumed wine, sesame, fragrant oil of almonds and turpentine. The people were both cattle-breeders and agriculturists. They exported many horses. Herodotus calls the Armens polyprobatoi, “rich in animals.” Distinction should be made, however, between the civilization in the different parts of the country. Stately houses with towers on the banks of the Centrides River were in striking contrast to the underground dwellings near the sources of the Euphrates. The rural life of the Armens was indicative of a patriarchal or family character. A group of villages was surrounded with barricades and was governed by a village chief or Komarch (archon tes komes) representing the satrap. Payment of taxes to the Persian king was made collectively. The absence of cities was noticeable. Various clans, settled in villages under local chiefs, supplied a specified number of soldiers to the army of the nearest petty king. A general of Darius was one of these kings. By the large numbers of the Armenian army serving under the Great Persian monarch — recruited from one section of the Armenian plateau — we are led to believe that all of the comparatively small number of new settlers were soldiers. The same was true in the Georgian and Albanian lands of the Caucasus, as pointed out by the Georgian historian, J. Tchavakhishvili. The word eri in the ancient Iberian (Georgian) language meant both people and soldiers. The Medes, after subduing the kingdom of Urartu, utilized the Armens in keeping that turbulent people under subjection. Marquart notes that the settling of the warlike Armen colonists in the strategic places in the Armenian highlands was because of their military capacity. From all this, Manandian reaches the conclusion that, as the ancient Slavons, so the ancient Armens were in the period of “warring democracy.” The same may be said of the Medes and the Persians of old, whose democratic organization and public assemblies point to their having a soldier population.

Hence the destruction in the ancient East, even as in the medieval West, of the cultural great powers, had been mainly achieved by the so‑called “barbarian” new peoples, such as the Medes, Persians and Armens. Applying the principle to the Armens, Prof. Marr has remarked, “And now there succeeded, one after the other, warlike Aryan peoples, just as in later times came inrushing masses of Turks. These Aryan races who, at that time, were certainly savages by comparison with the natives, were nevertheless strong in their military organization, and subdued the culturally higher races, intermixed with them and created a new world.”

Attention is called by Manandian to the fact that the commercial intercourse between Babylon and Armenia was carried on for the most part by the Assyrians. Business transactions, limited in Armenia in those days, were principally in the hands of the Semitic peoples, while the Armenians were essentially farmers and cattle-breeders.

The Armenians have their full share of legends regarding their origin; legends in which spirits, gods and superhuman heroes, the forces and phenomena of nature, play dominant parts. In such myths may be traced occasional historical facts. The impossible thing is to disentangle the fact from the fiction. The most pervasive figure in this national folklore which has come down to us through songs and ballads is that of Haik.

The Hero-Ancestor

Haik, the wonderful archer, long ago became established in the national legend as the ancestor of the Armenians, bequeathing to them the patronymic Hay, the name which the Armenians apply to themselves. This legend takes us back to that prehistoric epoch when the first Armenians arrived in the land of Urartu, under the leadership of a great commander. Haik, according to the story, revolted against a tyrant, Bel of Babylon, and departed for the North with his family and followers. Bel, at the head of a large army, pursued and came upon him. Haik engaged Bel in battle, killed him with an arrow, dispersed his rabble of warriors and freed the land which is known as Hark — i.e., the country of the Hai people.

The names of the places mentioned in the myths — Hark, Haikashen, Hayotz-tzor, are found around the Lake of Van, the region where the Armenians settled. Haik, the nahapet (tribal chief), whose household included 300 men, waged his successful battle in the “land of Ararat.” After his victory over Bel, the chieftain proceeded towards the northwest, whose inhabitants voluntarily submitted to his authority.

This legend is reminiscent of the invasion of the Armenians from the west. The bringing of Haik from the south in the narrative may be traced to the wish of the Christian historians of Armenia — Khorenatsi and others — to connect the story of Haik and Bel with the Biblical narrative of the construction of the Tower of Babel.

An historical character?

Father S. Der Movsessian believes that Haik was “an historical person.” He was later deified and worshipped as “Deus Armenicus,” the man who led a Hittite colony into Armenia in 580 B.C. and vanquished the last Urartean king, Menuas II, whom tradition has transformed into the tyrant Bel. Gradually the name Haik, derived from Hay, became an adjective or adverb, synonymous with heroic valor, prowess and beauty. This view has been endorsed by another savant, Father S. Matikian, a Mekhitarist of Vienna, who connects Haik with Hai or Hay, the old name of the Armenian people, and offers in support of his argument the names of Assyria, Athens and Rome, each named in honor of its particular deity-hero. Haik, says he, that titan of popular legend, was one of the greatest of gods, equal to the Indra of India, the Assur of Assyria, the Hattu of the Hittites and the Khaldi of the Khaldian-Urarteans. The Haik of Khorenatsi reminds us of Marduk, mentioned in the Bible, a Babylonian divinity (represented in our skies by the planet Mercury) whose arrow slew Bel because of his rebellion against the gods. In a similar manner, the dragon Verethra had been destroyed by Indra, the enemies of Athens by Athene, and the enemies of Germany by Odin. Just as Haik fled from Babylon because of Bel, whom he eventually killed, so Zeus had escaped to the mountains of the Caucasus, later to return to Sicily and hurl fatal arrows into the bodies of his titanic foes.

Haik linked with Orion

Ancient legendary heroes and demigods were often, in popular imagination, transfigured into stars — as in the case of Marduk and Mercury — so that the people would have nightly evidence of their celestial existence. In the old popular sense, Haik means a giant, and in some manner he became connected with the Orion of Greek legend — perhaps because Orion, too, was a hero of fine stature and features. The latter was accidentally slain by Diana, who was in love with him, and in her remorse she turned him into a brilliant constellation. Other mythological cults saw Orion as the god of the wind and storm; the “thunderous Orion” of the Babylonian conception drove away evil spirits. And so it came to pass that this constellation mentioned twice in the Bible (Job IX, 9; XXXVIII, 31) and called Orion in the Greek text, was, in the Armenian translation, turned into Haik.

The linguistic relation between the names of Haik and Hai or Hay is not entirely clear. The prototype of Hay or Khay has been traced by some scholars to the name of the great god Khaldi. Father L. Alishan believes that the name Hay was derived from Haik, and that the national patronymic was originally Ha. Ha‑os was the name under which the nation was mentioned by the Georgian historians, the ending os being a Greek usage. The appellation Ha still existed in certain Armenian localities until 1915; also in the plural form Haik or Hek, Khaik or Khek, as in Khekotz-Vank, the monastery of the Armenians.

Tel-el‑Amarna tablets

All the above conjectures concerning the name Hai or Hay were supplemented by discoveries during excavations in Tel-el‑Amarna, Egypt, in 1887. There 350 clay tablets were found, the archives of the Pharaohs Amenophis III and Amenophis IV (1350‑1335 B.C.). The deciphering of these led to the discovery of Hattushash, the capital of the forgotten Hittite empire, at the site of the modern Turkish village of Boghaz-Keuy, near Yozgat, Asia Minor. The cuneiform inscriptions on the Hattushash tablets, deciphered in 1925 by Hugo Winckler and Bedrick Hrozny, disclosed a hitherto unknown state, Hayasa, located in what came to be known as Armenia, northeast of the Hittite empire. “The similarity of the words Hayasa and Hayastan,” says Prof. A. Hatch, “is so obvious that I am tempted to declare that the oldest name of Armenia has already been discovered.” The form Haystan, however, is of a later date, formed from Hay and Stan. The Persian suffix stan — sthana in Sanskrit — indicates “the place, the home.”

Origin of the name “Hay”

The etymology of the word Hay still remains a controversial problem. Some authorities derive it from Pet, of an Indo-European language root, meaning ruler. It is said that the Armens who invaded Armenia were called by the subjugated natives Pet. Strange as it may seem, comparative philology has certain formulae of linguistic evolution which make it possible for Pet to become in the course of ages, Hay. For the word peter orpater (father) the Armenian has hayr (pronounced hire), while the word for mother is mayr (pronounced mire).

But other scholars find the origin of Hay in Khald or Hald, the name of the national god Khaldis, worshipped by the early inhabitants of Armenia.Kh here is pronounced like the guttural Χ of the Greek alphabet or the German ch. The ancient Urartean Empire, of which the city of Van was the capital, is known to some scholars also as the Vannic, but more generally as the Khaldean or Haldian empire. By a process of phonetic evolution, Khald becomes Khayd, and then sloughing off the final d, we have Khay. In fact, places still in existence around the Lake of Van were, before the Armenian deportation in the First World-War, called Khaik or Khek, meaning Armenians. In many districts, villages spoke of themselves as Khay, and still thought of the country as Khayastan.

There are yet other theories. P. Jensen, who claimed that the Armenians are the descendants of the Hittites, derived Hay from Hatio-Hatti, another word for Hittite. Father Joseph Sandalgian found in the Vannic inscriptions the word Uas or Huas, the name of the god of wind, whose worshippers were called Huas, a name which, he believed, was gradually metamorphosed into Hay.

Armenia as a Median ally

Cyaxares, King of Media, aided by Babylonia, destroyed the Assyrian kingdom in 605 B.C. and captured its western refuge, Carchemish on the Euphrates. Nineveh, its capital, had already been razed. The Medians put an end, likewise, to the Urartean kingdom, and advancing further west, by 590 were attempting the domination of Asia Minor. The battle, waged between the Medes and the Lydians on the banks of the Halys River on May 28th, 585, was interrupted by a solar eclipse, and peace was concluded, fixing the river as the frontier between the two empires. Media was then a confederation of states, each one maintaining its own religion, language and laws. By that time, Armens had settled in Armenia, living in neighborly relations with Khaldean-Urarteans and as subjects and allies of the Median kingdom; so states Xenophon in his Cyropedia.

In 550 B.C., Cyrus (Kuros) the Persian monarch, waged war on Astyages (Azhdahag) of Media, and seized his power. The Medes thereupon entered into alliance with the Persians, with the state of Armenia as another member of the federation. The Armenian king, who had two sons, Tigran and Sabaris (Shavarsh), had been defeated by Astyages and compelled to pay annual tribute. The Armenian army was then composed of 40,000 infantrymen and 8,000 cavalry. The king’s assets were some 3,000 talents, or about $30,000,000. Upon the outbreak of hostilities between Media and Babylonia he had renounced his treaty obligations to the Medes. Cyrus, then commander of the army of Cyaxares, captured the Armenian king and his family, but soon released them through the intercession of Tigran, the king’s son, who was a friend and hunting companion of Cyrus.

It may be adduced from Xenophon’s story that the Armens who had crossed the Euphrates in the early sixth century B.C. accepted the Median king as their suzerain, in addition to their own chief, whom Xenophon also calls “king” (Basileus). The Armens who occupied and cultivated the plains of their new home, also needed grazing lands for their cattle, and for that reason continued their feud with the Khalds, the inhabitants of the mountain-sides. This friction, which had facilitated the Median predominance in the country, came to an end by reason of the reconciliation — and eventual intermixture of the two main elements — the incoming Armens and the older stock, the Urarteans.

Early Armen kingdom

A folklore poem dealing with Tigran Erouandian, contemporary of Astyages and Cyrus, has caused Khorenatsi to confuse the Tigran of the sixth century B.C. with the Tigran the Great of the first century B.C. However, Xenophon’s account, evidently based upon popular songs and stories, confirms the existence of an Armen kingdom immediately after the fall of the Urartean. Savaris (Shavarsh), Vahagn, Nerseh, Zareh, etc., the successors of Tigran Erouandian, were Armens by race, despite their Median or Persian names. The adoption of Iranian names and customs was the result of intimate relations established between the two peoples. Witness Khorenatsi’s narrative of the marriage of Tigran’s sister Tigranuhi with Astyages, King of the Medes, whom Tigran was finally forced to slay in battle.

Achaemenid-Persian rule

Armenia had become a dependency of Persia after the fall of the Median empire in 550 B.C. The Armenian contingents, cavalry and infantry, had taken part in Cyrus’s conquest of Lydia in 546 and of Babylonia in 539. A rebellion of ten subject nations — one of them Armenia — broke out against Persia during the reign of Darius I (522‑486). The Armenians were compelled to acknowledge defeat after five battles, one of them fought on Assyrian territory. “Arakha, an Armen, the son of Haldita,” pretender to the throne of Babylonia, was also defeated and executed. Armenia became thereafter the thirteenth of the twenty provinces of the Empire, ruled by satraps — “khshatrapa” in Persian. Native grandees, however, were permitted to exercise a certain measure of authority under the satraps.

The forced union accomplished among the powerful states of the East — Assyria, Babylonia, Lydia and Egypt — contributed greatly towards the known world’s commercial and financial development. Land and sea communication with India was established during the Achaemenid period. Darius I reopened the canal connecting the River Nile with the Red Sea, which had been dug during the period of the Pharaohs. Darius I also introduced an improved monetary system, and safer and quicker means of travel and transportation. In conjunction with several peoples of the Euxine Sea coast, the Armenian satrapy paid to the Imperial treasury 400 talents, equivalent to $400,000. Armenia also supplied the King’s stable with 20,000 foals for every annual festival of Mithra. Armenian military forces had been joining the Persian army from the earliest times. Those who served under Xerxes in the invasion of Greece in 480 B.C., says Herodotus, “were armed like the Phrygians, and together with these, they were commanded by Artomex II, son-in‑law of Darius.” Their weapons and equipment were all alike. At that time the Armens had occupied only southwestern parts of Armenia, while the Saspeirs and the Urarteans or Alarodians lived in the plains of Ararat. The Persian “royal” highway, connecting Sardice (Lydia) and Susa (Persia) passed across the modern Malatia-Harpout-Diarbekir-Jezireh areas.

A Redoubtable Foe

One of the great chapters in the history of Armenia is or should be the epic of the monarchy which the Assyrians called Urartu, but which was known to the Hebrews as Ararat. Herodotus called its people Alarodians. Urartu is regarded by history today as one of the earlier incarnations of Armenia. In Urartu was manifest not only the indomitable fighting spirit of the later Armenians, but also the same tendency towards development of a higher culture. As a noted authority, H. A. B. Lynch, remarks, Urartu was “no obscure dynasty which slept secure behind the mountains, but a splendid monarchy which for more than two centuries rivalled the claims of Assyria to the dominion of the ancient world.”

Its Peak Years

As a nation, it lived through many more centuries than that, but it was only between 860 and 585 B.C. that it actually disputed with Assyria the right to dominate western Asia. Its beginnings are lost in the mists of pre-history. Its people must have migrated from somewhere to the west into the Armenian plateau, then for the most part known as Nairi. They called themselves Khaldians or children of the god Khaldis, just as the name of the Assyrians reflects the name of their god Assur. The cuneiform characters of their inscriptions were for centuries Assyrian; but later on the language changed to or was absorbed in the local one. The Assyrian was a Semitic language, while Urartean was neither Semitic nor Indo-European. Urartean culture is believed to have been similar to the Hittite and Assyro-Babylonian, blended with native characteristics. The later Urartean monuments still hold a mystery for us as to their affinity with the Armenian language, witness of a glorious past. It has not yet been possible to decipher these inscriptions with any aid from the Armenian language. N. Marr, Nikolsky, Lehmann-Haupt and earlier scientists have classified them as in the Japhetic speech-group, and the Armenian experts, A. Calantar and G. Ghapantsian, agree in this finding. Professor Nikolsky has found hundreds of words, both nouns and verbs, showing affinity between the Urartean and the modern Utean. As early as 1879 H. Hübschmann pointed out in the Urartean inscriptions several words and suffixes — such as ili, ini, and uni — borrowed from Caucasian idioms, especially Georgian and Aghouanian (Albanian).

Mystery of Origin

Where did these people come from? From Asia Minor, declares Lehmann-Haupt, seeking proof for his assertion in their metallurgy, architecture and folkways. Professor Shestokov, a Caucasian author, wrote in 1939 that “The oldest states of the Soviet Union were founded 3,000 years ago to the south of Transcaucasia. The oldest among them, that in the Ararat area, by the Lake of Van, was called Urartu. Its kings ruled over Georgian tribes.” Here is another theory as to the origin of the people once dwelling in Nairi, which comprised the entire Armenian plateau. Even when the greater part of that tableland became Urartu, the regions on two flanks of it, from Amit (Diarbekr) to Anzitene (Harpout), together with Habushkia in Zab Valley, and Paddira, south of Musasir, were still called Nairi. The name Nairi-Urartu reveals kinship with Hurri, Namri, Kirruri and other names with the suffix ri, having no connection with Semitic idioms.

Professor Edward Schultz was one of the first to obtain original information on Urartu, when he visited Armenia in 1827. He was murdered there by a Kurd, but his papers, containing 42 inscriptions found at Van and in its neighborhood, were saved. The later discoveries of Burnouf, Lassen and Rawlinson stimulated interest in Oriental antiquities. Layard visited Van in 1850 and took new copies of the inscriptions. Of special interest were one tablet on the rock of Van, and an inscription on a stone in a ruined wall. The first contains the name of Xerxes, son of Darius, in the same characters as those of Behistun and Persepolis. The second resembles Assyrian writings. All others are of a language peculiar to Van. Another mysterious text was read by Hincks in 1847, and following these Professor A. H. Sayce added “a new language and a new people to the museum of the ancient Oriental world.” Thereafter the known Vannic texts were doubled in extent by the German archaeologists, Lehmann and Belck, who, in the words of Lynch, called up “a vanished civilization from the grave.” But even so, alas, they could evoke only a broken and fragmentary body; so much has been lost by the ravages of war and vandalism and time.

	Plaque fragment inscribed with the Urartian royal name Argishti (probably Argishti II), 8th–7th century B.C.		Part of a throne with deity on a bull, late 8th–7th century B.C		Bell inscribed with the Urartian royal name Argishti, 786–756 B.C.		Belt fragment of animals, 7th century B.C.		Urartu Sphinx

Van-Tosp

The seat of this theocratic monarchy was Thuspa, capital of the territory of Biaina, corrupted into the form Van. The Armenian national historian, Moses of Khoren (Khorenatsi), mentions Van as “in the province of Tosp.” In some of the ancient inscriptions, one finds, “King of Biaina, inhabiting the city of Thuspas.” Going back into history we find Tiglat-Pileser I, King of Assyria, asserting that he conquered twenty-three kings of Nairi in 1114 B.C. These “kingdoms” must have been very small, indeed; and when we find that this same Tiglat claimed to have slain with his own hand ten elephants and 920 lions, we are inclined to receive his statements with reserve. In an inscription of the Assyrian Assurbelkala (1077‑1060 B.C.), first appears the name Uruatru. A Shalmanaser of Assyria (1028‑1017 B.C.), claimed the conquest of “the entire country of Uruatru” in three days. In inscriptions of Ashurnasirpal (885‑859 B.C.) the name appears as Urardhu or Urarthu. The succeeding king Shalmaneser, now called by most historians the Second (859‑825 B.C.) sent an army against a king of Urartu named Aramé, whose capital was Arzasku or Arzaskun, identified with the modern Melazgerd, north of Lake Van. Aramé, who, according to Adontz, was the first organizer of the Urartean Empire, was defeated and his capital taken by Shalmanaser in 857 B.C.

Arame

To say that he was the “organizer” of the Empire, means that he combined the “Nairi countries” into a confederation under the aegis of the god Khaldis, supplanting an earlier Biaina confederation. Some authorities believe that not Aramé but Sardur I (844‑828) was the organizer of the confederation. Sardur was the son of Lutipris, who succeeded Aramé. He left an inscription in the Assyrian language, calling himself King of Sura, which, according to Professor Albrecht Goetze, is the same as Subaru. If this is so, the Urartean kings’ claim of Hurrite descent entitled them to domination in Subari, or Upper Mesopotamia. Sardur’s other titles were “Great King,” and “Ruler of Four Regions,” i.e., Shar-Kishatti, according to Babylonian and Assyrian inscriptions.

Sardur I

Sardur built a fortress of huge stones west of the Rock of Van, and Ispuinis, his son and successor, chose that rock as his residence and as the holy seat of the god Khaldis. Ispuinis was a contemporary of Adadnirari IV of Assyria, son of Shalmanaser and husband of Queen Shammuramat (Semiramis). Ispuinis fought and defeated his powerful rival, and was thus enabled to found a Khaldian colony at Musasir, west of the Pass of Kelishinin, where he erected a commemorative stone with inscriptions in Khaldian and Assyrian. Ispuinis and his son Menuas brought the empire to its peak. Under them it extended from the Zagros Mountains in the East to Palu in the North and Malatia in the West.

During their reigns great works were constructed around Van, including the aqueduct of Shamiram‑Su, 45 miles in length, completed by Menuas, which brought the pure water of the Khoshab River to the eastern shores of Lake Van (whose water is undrinkable), enabling the King to found there a “Menuas city.” This canal irrigates the plain of Van even to the present time.

Ispuinis and Menuas

Officials were appointed to inspect the canals, to keep their channels clean, to distribute the water according to regulations and to plan effective measures against overflowing. Menuas planted a garden, dedicated to the memory of the wife of Ispuinis; he repaired and embellished the temple of Khaldi in Van, and he strengthened the great fortification of Melazkert. No better location for a fortress against a power operating from the southern lowlands could have been chosen by the builders of an empire on the Armenian plains. Made more secure by a fleet on the lake, and by the fortification of the passes of Mount Varag, the place became of first-rate military importance only when the centers of hostile force lay in Mesopotamia. These facts explain the comparative immunity and rapid development of the empire of the successors of Sardur I, at a time when Assyria was ruled by warlike monarchs. The period of Ispuinis and Menuas is perhaps the most brilliant in Urartean history.

Argistis I

The political ascendancy of Urartu was enhanced further by the weakness of Assyria under Shalmaneser III (782‑772). Under Argistis I (785‑755), son of Menuas, the Vannic Empire was still at the zenith of its power. The future city of Armavir rose on the bank of the Arax River in honor of Khaldis. The whole Armenian tableland was subject to Urartu, and its inscriptions recording conquests are found from Lake Urmiah to the Euphrates River at Malatia. Thus having become an unrivalled power in Hither Asia, it imposed its suzerainty in 775 B.C. upon the kingdoms of Kummuch (Diarbekir), Tabal (west of Malatia) and several other kingdoms and principalities. Later on, in 758, after crushing the revolt of the Hatti king of Milidu (Malatia), Sardur III, successor of Argistis I, moved southward, put the Great King of Carchemish (Jarablus) under tribute, and captured the whole territory as far as Halpa (Aleppo). The empire of Assyria was then encircled, says the Turkish scholar, Professor Shemseddin, as if “in an iron hoop.”

Sardur III

Argistis left a record of fourteen years of his reign on the walls of chambers hewn in the Rock of Van, while Sardur III’s victories are inscribed on a monument erected on a spot called “the Treasury Gate” in the fortress of Van. The Urarteans, then in close contact with the Hittites in the west, had in the east as neighbors the Minni or Manni, in the southerly portion of the Urmiah basin. Records of victories are also found inscribed farther north, on the shores of Lake Sevan, at Alexandropol (now Leninakan), at Hasankala (Erzerum), etc.

This brilliant era of Urartu did not last long. Sardur III’s Assyrian contemporaries, Assurnirari (755‑745) and Tiglat-Pileser III (745‑727), waged war upon him, and the latter dealt him a telling blow, routing him, together with his allies, the kings of New Hatti (in Malatia), of Gurgum (Marash) and a score of others. The Menuas-city was destroyed in 735 and the conqueror claimed to have taken 73,000 prisoners. Hatti princes thereupon recognized the king of Assyria as their suzerain lord, instead of the Urartean potentate. Sardur fled deep into his mountains with a broken spirit and health, and sank into a physical decline, of which he died in 734 B.C.

Rusas I

Rusas I (733‑714 B.C.), a vigorous and sagacious prince, reorganized the army, suppressed domestic turbulences and revived the morale of the people. From Thuspa he transferred his seat to a hill later known by the Turkish name Toprak-kaleh (the earthen fort). This Rusas-city was supplied with water from an artificial lake in the side of the Varag Mountain. All this he recorded on a stele which in 1898‑9 was taken to the Museum of Berlin.

However, he was given little opportunity to rebuild Urartu’s old eminence. Sargon II (722‑705), the most terrifying figure among the occupants of the Assyrian throne, darkened the political horizon of all the Near-Eastern lands. Tusas organized a coalition of the states of Western Asia and strengthened the position of Urzana, King of Musasir, his vassal and ally. But in a sanguinary battle described in an inscription found near the shore of Lake Sevan, the Khaldian army, though resisting stubbornly, was defeated by Sargon, who also overwhelmed Musasir and plundered its temple. In the vast quantity of spoil carried to Nineveh were many idols belonging to the Urartean kings.

Even after this terrible loss of men and material, Rusas did not yield to despair. Whilst neighboring nations were trembling with fear of the Assyrian scourge, Rusas replenished the reservoirs of his strength and for the time being, saved his kingdom from destruction. But another black chapter was in the making for him. Cimmerian hordes from the North, sweeping through the mountain defiles, down into the regions of the Urmiah and Vannic lakes, surprised Urartu and wrought great destruction. According to one version of the outcome, the army of Rusas, unable to offer adequate resistance, melted away, and Rusas committed suicide in 714. But T. A. Olmstead, in his History of Assyria, questioning the reliability of the Assyrian royal scribes regards this as a mere spectacular raid, without enduring results. One inscription, speaking of the fate of Rusas, says “With his own iron dagger, he pierced his heart as he would to a pig and ended his life.” Olmstead compares this with a slightly later Assyrian inscription in which the defeated king is pictured as being ill, though there is not a word about suicide. It may well be that this malady caused his death.

Argistis II

Argistis II (714‑680), son and successor of Rusas, rid himself of the Cimmerian hordes by deflecting their trend to westward, into Cappadocia. As to his relationship with Assyria, the latter’s reports are silent, the explanation undoubtedly being that Sargon was not victorious at the time, but had been forced into a defensive attitude. Argistis II, however, was engaged in secret activities, the center of which was the province of Harda or Kharda, the modern Kharberd or Harpout. The canton of Inzit, the Hantzit of the geography of Armenia, was then a part of the province of Alzi or Aghtzniq.

Sargon, once so boastful of his devastation in Urartu, now sent envoys to Argistis, professing great friendship. The Urartean king, however, did not alter his plans; he continued his preparations, and increased his pressure upon Assyria in the Eastern Tigris basin. Sargon’s son, Sennacherib, then a provincial governor, urged his father to send more troops to that area, informing him of Argistis’s order to his prefects to “seize the governors of the Assyrian king in Kumai and drag them before me.”

Sennacherib was assassinated in 681 — by two of his sons, Adramelech and Sharazer, according to the Bible. Professor N. Adontz ascribes this crime to the second son only, Ardi or Arad-Ninlil, who, allied with Adramelos Nebusaresur, the governor of Maraski, fought against his own brother Esarhaddon. Defeated at Carchemish, the two fled into Armenia.

Efforts have been made to decipher the cuneiform inscriptions of Armenia through the present-day Armenian language. The failure of these attempts has led some to believe that the inscriptions in question must be in some unknown, alien tongue, neither Indo-European nor Semitic.

Linguistic Connections

One investigator, P. Jensen, finds a certain similarity between the Urartean language and that in which the letter of King Tushratta of Mitanni (found at Tel-el‑Amarna, Egypt) was written. For example, the name of the god Tesub of the Mitanni closely resembles that of the god Teisbas of Urartu. Another scholar thinks that ancient Armenia or Urartu had a cultural connection with Asia Minor and Syria — citing the Hurri-Mitanni or Subarean remains in upper Mesopotamia and Syria as having points of resemblance to the characters of the Khaldian inscriptions.

There appears to have been a pre-Indo-European substratum of speech which strongly influenced the Indo-European-Armenian. Professor N. Marr, a Khaldist authority, suspects that the language of the Vannic cuneiforms is of the type of several modern Caucasian dialects of the Japhetic class. however, the Aryo-European must have exerted great influence upon the Urartean, even long before the times of the Vannic Empire.

On the other hand, E. Meyer cites names of royal princes many centuries before Christ in the Taurus area and Palestine, and later in Commagene; names such as Arta-tama, Arta-skana and Artamana, all more Iranian in character than Indian, and all bearing the Arta prefix which persists in Armenian names to this day. But there were names such as Kundaspie and Kustaspie, which were originally Indian, their forms then being Vindaspa and Vistaspa. Other significant links are found in the Hatti-Mitanni treaty (1387‑1367 B.C.), which contained the names of other than gods, and in the Sanskrit numerals, yeka (one), tria (three) and panja (five), as found in the treatise upon horse-training by Kikkuli of Mitanni (1400 B.C.).

The Subarean (Asianic-Hurri-Japhetic) language is the basic stratum of the various above-mentioned tongues; it was topped and strongly affected by the Aryan-Mitanni language, from which mixture the Urartean sprang up, it being related in turn to the old Hatti-Asianic, the new Caucasian and through Indo-European elements, to the Aryan languages. On this Indo-European-Armenian foundation was superimposed the Urartean speech, which was forced upon the conquered natives, from whose dialects also an additional stock of words was assimilated in the course of time. Traces of anthropological types of culture, religion and social customs are being discovered from time to time under the Armen stratum. The same may be said of the linguistic heritage of the past.

In his analysis of the known Iso-Urartean root-words, Professor Ghapantsian of Erevan University identifies one-fourth as of Hittite character. Many other root words and grammatical forms of non-Indo-European types have been found, but belonging to an Asia Minor group. All non-Indo-European elements, the Urartean and others, descend from the Subarean common origin. The same applies to the anthropological strata of the population of Armenia, whose chronology is stated by Professor A. Hatch as follows: Urartu.

Hittite inscriptions deciphered by E. Forrer testify to the existence of a mountain country, the Hayasa, lying around the Lake of Van. Hayasa or Khayasa identified with Haik, Hayk or Hark, was inhabited before the coming of Armens. The suffix sa of Hayasa corresponds to the stan, derivative of Hayasatan (Armenia). Greeks knew about this country (Hayasa) and their writers wrote about Armenians or hayers. The cuneiform tablets of Boghaz Keuy have preserved the names of four succesive kings who ruled in Hayasa. They were Karannish, Mariyash, Hukkanash and Anniyash, the four covering a period of 55 years, from 1390 to 1335 B.C.

The first-named of this kings made incursions into the Hatti or Hittite empire, which were checked by the Emperor Dudhaliyash and hid successor, Subbiluliuma. Mariyash, the next king of Hayasa, who had married a Hittite princess, was punished with death because of his breach of matrimonial contract. Hukkanash, the third in the line, also married a Hittite princess, the sister of the Emperor Subbiluliuma.

The marriage treaty of this couple contained some interesting stipulations peculiar to the time. “My sister, whom I gave you in marriage,” says the Hatti rular, “ has sisters; through your marriage, they now become your relatives. Well, there is a law in the land of the Hatti. Do not approach sisters-in-law or your cousins; that is not permitted. In Hatti Land, whosoever commits such an act does not live; he dies.  .   . In your country, you do not hesitate to marry your own sister-in-law or cousin, because you are not civilized. Such an act cannot be permitted in Hatti.”

Despite these restrictions imposed upon Hukkanash, he was no meek and submissive brother-in-law in political and military affairs. As a condition for the release of the thousands of Hittite prisoners held in his domain, he demanded first the return home of the Hayasan prisoners confined at Hatti. The Hittite Empire had been subject to contant harassment by its eastern neighbors, from the basin of the upper Euphrates to Aravanna (Erevan of today) and Tebruzzi (Tabriz). One of the most important of these enemies crouched on its eastern border was the kingdom of Hayasa-Azzi (the name Azzi represents the Alzi or Alzini of the Assyrian and Urartean inscriptions).

“Mursil, the Hittite Emperor,” say Cavaignac, speaking of that period, ” was busy in the wars waged against Azzi or Hayasa, which were as bitter as those waged against Arzava (Weatern Cilicia). About the beginning of Subbiluliuma’s reign, that country (Hayasa-Azzi) was subject to Hittite influence, but won its freedom later on. Annyash, the King of Hayasa, had sacked several districts and refused to release the prisoners taken. He had created a political uniom of the tribes of Armenia, and organized a kingdom which extended from the River Iris (Yerhil-Irmak) to the Lake of Van.”

Hayasa’s good fortune did not continue long, however. The Hittite Mursil II, having consulted the oracles, invaded Hayasa in 1340 B.C. In the following spring he crossed the Euphrates and reorganized his army at Ingalova-Angegh, Angl-which, about ten centuries later, was to become the treasure-house and burial-place of the captured fortresses lay on the west side of the Lake of Van.

 The Annals of Mursil thus describe these campaigns:

“The people of Nahasse arose and besieged” (name indecipher-able).

“Other enemies and people of Hayasa likewise.  .  .  . They plundered Institina, blockaded Ganuvara.  .  . with troops and chariots. And because I had left Nuvanzas, the chief cupbearer, and all the heads of the camp and troops and chariots in the High Country, I wrote to Nuvanzas as follows; “See, the people of Hayasa.  .  . have devastated Institina, and blockaded the city of Ganuvara.” .  .  . And Nuvanza led troops and chariots for aid and marched to Ganuvara.  .  . And then he sent to me a messenger and  wrote to me; “Will you not go to consult for me the augur and the foreteller? Could not a decision be made for me by the birds and the flesh of the expiatory victims?” ”And I sent to Nuvanza this letter: ‘See, I consulted for you birds and flesh, and they commanded, Go! because these people of Hayasa, the God U, has already delivered to you; strike them!’ ”And as I was returning from Astatan to Carchemish, the royal prince Nana-Lu came to meet me on the road and said, ‘The Hayasa enemy having besieged Ganuvara. Nuvanza marche against him and met him under the walls of Ganuvara. Ten thousand men and seven hundred chariots were drawn up in battle against him, and Nuvanza defeated them. There are many dead and many prisoners.’ “ ”And when I arrived in Tiggaramma, the chief cup-bearer Nuvanza and all the noblemen came to meet me at Tiggaramma. I Should have marched to Hayasa still, but the chiefs said to me, ‘The season is now far advanced, Sire, Lord! Do not go to Hayasa.’ And I did not go to   Hayasa.  Hayasa as a fighting power was practically eliminated by the expedition of Mursil II in 1340 B.C.  But after Mursil’s premature death in 1320 B.C.  the Hatti empire suffered a series of shocks. His elder brother Arvandas (Erouand) had also died young. A natural phenomenon, the eclipse of the sun, had terrified the people. A dreadful epidemic of some sort took a vast number of lives, including that of the Queen. The population of the capital was decimated to such a degree as to require the forced immigration of new inhabitants from adjoining countries. Taking advantage of the ensuing debacle, Mursil’s nephew, Arma-u-as (Aramais?), contested against the heir-apparent for the succession to the crown. Still more serious was the menace of the sucession to the crown. Still more serious was the menace of the external enemies of the land, especially those of the North and East, who devastated the country in revenge for Mursil’s conquests. A record exists of the incursion of the Kaskas or Kaskians, who crossed the Halys River with 800 chariots and advanced as far as the capital, which they plundered.   

The King was compelled to remove the idols and the paraphernalia for the worship of the dead to a safer place. The Kaskas-whose home was Armenia- attacked by way of Amasia. Leonard King describes them as an “unruly people” living between the Euphrates and the Lake of Van, and a constant menace to the Hatti. “No Hatti King,” says he, “was able to establish his power there permanently.” It may therefore be safely assumed that Hayasa still exerted its influence. In any case, however, the days of Hattite hegemony were numbered. The Assyrians forged ahead and gradually spread their domination over southern and western Armenia. Hayasa.