Genetics of the Highland Another important tool we have at our disposal to asses population dynamics (both ancient and modern) is the study of genetics. When looking at the Armenian genetics the first and foremost evidence comes to us from the mere fact that Armenians are quite uniquely considered to be proper representatives of...
Who were the Urartians? – The language – [Part 4]
What about the language? Before we dive into the similarities between the Urartian and the Armenian languages, it is important to stress that an ethnicity is never defined by language alone. One of the most common mistakes that I often hear (and read) regarding the Urartian identity is this overemphasis on the poorly defined...
Who were the Urartians? – Hayk and Haldi – [Part 3]
Yet another possibility, and perhaps complimentary to some of the previously-mentioned theories, is that the Armenian patriarch Hayk himself represents none other than the Urartian principal deity Haldi. The relation between the two has been argued convincingly before by Kavoukjian, Hacikyan, Basmajian, Franchuk, Ouzounian, Nourhan (2000–2005) yet the most striking similarities, in my opinion,...
Who were the Urartians? – Land of the forefather – [Part 2]
What’s in a name? If we want to better understand the Urartian identity we have to consider other exonyms as well as the native names (endonyms) of the country. We have to look at how others viewed the Urartians but also how both the Urartians and the Armenians self-identified. Did they consider themselves as...
Who were the Urartians? – Introduction – [Part 1]
Dear reader, it has been a while since I’ve made a post on this blog. The long delay was partially caused by the latest situation in Artsakh, after which, like many of us, I’ve lost some emotional energy for writing, and partially because I was, as much as I possibly could, researching the kingdom...
Freedom or Peace? My thoughts on the political crisis in Armenia
When I first started this blog I promised myself to never write about politics; not because it’s unimportant or outside of my personal interest, but because there are few domains that are capable of dividing a nation as much as politics. But desperate times require desperate measures so I too will weigh in on...
Does Nagorno-Karabakh have the legal right to independence?
For those who still haven’t heard the news, a brutal conflict was recently reignited between Azerbaijan and the ethnic Armenian people of Nagorno-Karabakh. Hostilities between Christian Armenians and Muslim (Trukic) Azerbaijanis have a long history, but this specific conflict could be best traced to the early days of the Soviet Union. After the 1st...
[VIDEO] Indo-European Homeland: The Revival of the Armenian Hypothesis
Because of recent developments in linguistics and especially archeaogenetics there has been a renewed interest in the Armenian Hypothesis. More and more credible evidence emerges suggesting that the first Indo-European language was spoken on the Armenian Plateau and spread east, west and north as people migrated from this central region. In this video I...
World’s oldest sword discovered in the Armenian Monastery in Venice
In 2017, an Italian student Vittoria Dall’Armellina was visiting the Mkhitarist monastery on San Lazzaro in Venice when she spotted a familiar looking sword. The sword was mistakenly labeled as a medieval artifact and was thought to be a few hundred years old. It turns out it’s one of the oldest known weapons in...
New DNA study rejects the Balkan origin of Armenians
Armenians are in many ways a unique ethnic group in the Near East. For one the Armenians speak a separate isolated branch within the Indo-European language family. Armenians are also genetic isolates showing little to no admixture since the Bronze Age collapse, and are considered one of the few ancient representatives of the Near...
