HISTORY – ANCIENT CIVILIZATION CULTURE – ARMENIA.
ANGELA TERYAN – Historian
Armenia is one of the oldest centers of civilization. The centuries‐old traces of material culture, myths and legends, geographical and personal names reveal that Armenians are the natives of the Armenian Highland; they are indigenious who lived there since the dawn of humanity.
Greek historians Herodotus (5th century B.C.), Xenophones (5 th century B.C.), Strabo (63 B.C.‐20) and some others speak extensively about the Armenians, their history and geography. The Greek historiography had also found its own version on the origin of Armenians. The version is about the Thraco‐Phrygian origin of Armenians which is based on some common features shared by both of them, common traditions, clothing, the used armours and also the myth of Armenos of Thesalia.
According to Armenian Midieval Historiography (V‐XV c, M. Khorenatsy, Agatangelos, P. Bouzand, Sebeos, etc.) Armenian people were ancient inhabitants of Armenian Highland and they have lived here since Babelon Mess.
Starting from the middle of the 20th century, researchers, especially the linguists (V. Illich‐ Svitich, O. Shirokov, G. Klichkov, A. Dolgopolski, V. Ivanov) bro‐ught forward the idea that the ancestors of the Indo‐European language speaking peoples, the Arian tribes, had lived in the Armenian Highland and surrounding areas. T. Gamkrelidze and V. Ivanov, in their work “The Indo‐European languages and the Indo‐Europeans”, discussed very thoroughly and deeply the questions about the location of the ancestors of the Indo‐Europeans in the areas including the Armenian Highland and surrounding lands. This opinion has many followers and enters steadily the scientific world.
Thus in the given monograph the author discusses and defends the assertions about the Armenian Highland as the homeland of the Armenians. The opinion that Armenia is the centre of Creation and ancient civilization, is also discussed. The arguments mainly focusing on the Armenian ethnos, history and Highland from the point of view of linguistics, mythology, history, anthropology, ethnic migrations reinforce the above stated assertions. The work also explores questions related to the worship of the Creator‐ AR‐ARA (Creator = Ararich in Armenian).
The written sources of ancient peoples (Summerians ‐ “Myth of Enki and Ninmah”, Akkadians ‐ “Enuma Elish”, Hurri “About the Heaven’s Kingdom”) prove that Man was created in a land called Abzu (Apsu, Apsuv) during the reign of ‘Lord of the Earth’ Haya (Aya, Ea, Gea). This land was known by the names Kur, Eden, Irigal, Arali.
From other written sources (‘Gilgamesh’, ‘Atrakhasis’) and from its geographical location (the Land of Mountains, the region of rivers’ springs) and considering the name Arali/Abzu, it becomes clear that the land is located in the sources of Euphrates and Tigris rivers in the Armenian Highland.
The Bible, in its turn witnesses that man was created in the Armenian Highland, in the regions of the Tigris, Euphrates, Gehon and Pison rivers’ sources. In the country under the rule of the deity Haya the created man considered himself the indigene of Haya’s land, the ‘Lord of the Earth’; hay /hai/, which means’ world inhabitant, world creature’. According to the Hurri‐Armenian mythology, which originated in the Armenian Highland (“About the Heaven’s Kingdom” , “The birth of Vahagn”), man was created in the land of Haya’s deity from the union of the Haya‐’Lord of the Mother Earth’, and of the Cosmic Creator God AR ( Arev, the Sun God).
The hay, an inhabitant created in the Armenian Highland, the worship of the deity Haya ‘Lord of the Earth’ made parallel to the Creator Father. Through the worship of the God AR he considered himself God’s Son Arma (Arman), Aram (Ar‐am, am=ma), Arme(n) and the area where the Hay‐Armens were created was called Ararat (Arar‐at), Hark (Har‐k) and Hayk (Hay‐k).
During a certain period of time in the history the Hay‐Armens had assigned to the brightest and the biggest celestial lighter with the creative powers and worshiped him as the God AR (ARA); the one that was giving Light, Life and Warmth; the Sun ‐God.
So we can say, the man created in Armenia, with his Hay‐Armen names, is considered a unique connection, a bridge between the Universe (Creator God Ar‐Ara) and Mother Earth (God/Godess Haya).
At the beginning of the 3rd millennium B.C. the Semitic tribes, the Akkadians (much later the Babylonians and the Assyrians) from the Arabian peninsula appeared in the Northern or Armenian Mesopotamia to the south of the Armenian Highland and had relations with its natives, the Hay Armens.
At these times the God AR was still worshiped. Some legends and tales were preserved about the Armenian Highlands’ inhabitants living in the Haya’s Land (hay) and being the sons of the God AR (Arma, Aram). The Akkadians called these people the Sons of God AR (Arma, Armen) and the land Armani or Aramani. Much later, in the 2nd and 1st millennia B.C. the Greeks and Persians called this people Armens.
In the present work, the role and the importance of the God AR is discussed in relation to the Armenians’ (also to Arian tribes’) spiritual and material cultural foundations. Great attention is devoted to the questions concerning Armenia as being the oldest country of Light and Sun Worship. The study shows that AR God’s name, its worship and the ideology may help understand the ancient periods of the Armenian history, as well as some names of state formations in the Armenian Highland (Aratta, Armani, Arme‐Urme, Ararat‐Urartu). The origins of some personal and geographical names starting with AR (or having that component), the names of other Gods ( Aramazd, Ahuramazda, Ares, Aras, Ram‐/A/Ram, Mars, Yar‐Yarilo), their worships and ideologies are also examined.
The worship of Sun and the worship of AR had left a deep impact on the formation of the mentality, moral norms, spiritual and material values of the Armenian‐Arian, as well as other Arian, tribes and on their further development.
In the 4th and 3rd millennia B.C., intensive development of the means of production took place in the Armenian Highland, which in its turn had brought for the increase in the number of population. It played a certain role in ethnic migrations of the populations. Consequently, a part of the Armenian tribes ‐ the ancestors of the Indo‐Europeans, the Arian tribes appeared in Iran, India, Greece, Europe and other areas (3rd ‐ 1st millennia B.C.), keeping the spiritual connection and the memories of the land of the ancestors and sacred mt. Ararat. They also took with them their forefather’s names hay (Armenian) and ari (Armen, Arman), in those names including their trib’s character and sort: proud, high (hay=high) and brave, powerful (ari).
Time and space had yielded to oblivion the homeland, but the material and spiritual values (myths, customs and traditions) and also the worship of the God AR bring people back in thier perceptions to the country of Sun, Light and of AR’s worship ‐Armenia.
In the work are presented chapters of Armenia‐Summer, Armenia‐India, Armenia‐Iran, Armenia‐Greece, Armenia‐Great Britain, Armenia‐Germany, also Armenia‐the Pireney peninsula (Spain, Basconia) and Slavian tribes (Russians), where much attention is payed to ancient written sources, also to their material, spiritual and cultural connections.
It is also interesting that the Armenian language, in contrast to other Indo‐European languages, has all phonetic sounds common to all Indo‐European languages.
Anthropological studies reveal that the Armenian Highland was inhabited by the anthropological type defined Armenoid by F. von Lushan.
Research of all these materials allows us to conclude that the ancestors of the Indo‐Europeans, the Arian tribes, well before their big or small ethnic migrations (in the 5‐3th millennium B.C.) lived in tribal unions. They had the same homeland (the Armenian Highland and surrounding lands), they worshiped the same gods (AR‐ARA, Aramazd, Vahagn, Mihr, Anahit), they had the same culture, lifestyle, names, the impacts of which have not even been destroyed by the passing millennia.
Angela Teryan, Historian
angelateryan.wordpress.com/2011/05/04/armenia-cradle-of-creation-and-civilization/
