Discovered among the rugged gorges of ancient Sophene (Tsopk), the first local Middle Aramaic inscription from Rabat Fortress explicitly invokes the 'House of Orontes', illuminating the royal heritage and administrative literacy of classical Armenia.
The Myth of Urartu’s Collapse: Archaeology Shows a 3,000-Year Continuum
When people talk about Urartu, they usually picture a powerful Iron Age kingdom that rose suddenly around Lake Van and then “collapsed” just as suddenly in the 7th–6th centuries BCE. In most popular narratives, Urartu vanishes in a blaze: Cimmerians, Scythians, Medes, fire, destruction, the usual suspects. But if you follow the stones themselves,...
New Artaxiad border-stone with Aramaic inscription found in Ardahan
In a remote village of Ardahan province of historic Armenia (modernday northeastern Turkey), archaeologists have uncovered an ancient stone bearing an inscription in the Aramaic language. The artifact has since been transferred to the Kars Archaeology and Ethnography Museum, in neighbouring Kars province, for detailed study. This is the first known Aramaic-language inscription documented...
The Floppy Hats of Urartu
Urartu, a rival kingdom to Assyria in the early 1st millennium BCE, is frequently mentioned and depicted in Neo-Assyrian sources. Among the visual depictions, one curious feature stands out: Urartian figures are often shown wearing distinctive “floppy” hats. These soft, conical caps with drooping peaks appear in Assyrian palace reliefs and have become an...
Hayots Gund: The Fearsome Army of United Armenia
In the annals of history, the Armenian kingdom stands out for its formidable military might. The Hayots Gund, or the Army of Armenia, was a cornerstone of this strength, embodying the valor and resilience of a nation that served as a buffer state between powerful empires. This post delves into the composition, tactics, and...
Who were the Urartians? – Highland Genetics – [Part 5]
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...
