Origins of the Armenian peoples

[Anonymouse]

Originally posted by Nimrod I did it got cut off Lilly. Anonymouse is trying to attempt to bend history to his own agenda. He should not try to pin political labels on me because of my perspective and facts I have included. History education in America in hands should be a little more than a JEWwash-- and I know that by his theory he appointed.

By the "theory" I appoint?

Listen Numbrod, you come to the forums, which is not the profiles, and you attempt to try to join discussions using methods that would get a high school student an F with your gross assumptions and distortions to fit into whatever ego driven slant you have going on.

What "theory" am I appointing? The fact that no one is "pure" and "nationalism" and "nation" is based on false claims? Guess what, the same "theory" I am appointing, which you call Jewish influenced, applies to Jews and Israel as well, since they have no claim to that land aside from the Bible, which doesn't mention anything called a "Jew" since this is a relatively modern term, surfacing AFTER Shakespeare, the Bible only refers to Hebrews. Jews are not Hebrews.

You never attempt to discuss any of the topics, instead you get into a copy and paste frenzy and attempt to "prove" whatever it is that you're out to prove. So what if "Armenians" descended from "Hittites". Those people who are "Armenians" that descended from "Hittites" didn't call themselves so, in fact we have no idea since they had no written language, our best shot is a guess. Furthermore, only with the perspective of hindsight are we able to tell these things and give them labels such as "Armenian". I cannot see where you are trying to go with this, maybe to give claims to Armenian lands, or some sort of superiority that we were "the most ancient ones" or "civilization started from Armenians". The "theory" I am appointing applies to all people since no one is "pure" and throughout time people have mixed and changed, so the past is not necessarily the determining factor of what the future will be. I have already come to terms that "Armenians" will disappear, and that just because during Tigran the Great Armenia was from sea to sea, isn't a justification for Armenia to be so today, in other words because it was so ages ago under a different time, doesn't mean we can use that as a measuring stick to have all the lands returned to us since those "Armenians" under Tigran were far more different than the "Armenians" that we are now, and ultimatley this is what leads me to a unpopular stance with Armenians since I don't want "lands back" if Turkey admits to the Genocide. Too many Armenians are caught in this little hurdle. Nations, people, and boundaries change, since history is not a point in time, it is a process.

[Nimrod]

Originally posted by whitelotus ryan you quoted me, but what did you respond with ? i dont see anything.

I did it got cut off Lilly. Anonymouse is trying to attempt to bend history to his own agenda. He should not try to pin political labels on me because of my perspective and facts I have included. History education in America in hands should be a little more than a JEWwash-- and I know that by his theory he appointed.

[whitelotus]

ryan you quoted me, but what did you respond with ? i dont see anything.

[Nimrod]

Originally posted by Nimrod Who said otherwise? All I said was that EVERYONE in the near East inherited and agreed to speak that ONE language and yet again you jump to a conclusion that is not there.

Excuse me, but I do not need to try anything when I have the evidence right there. Notice how all you do is recite your Professor's skewed perspective yet you never compare facts together while I just like now showed you the evidence. Alright I will conclude this finally by saying that: If you are an Atheist then I guess you can rely on your pseudo-"Linguistic" theories. Any Christian or anyone that really believes such master-mind information from such an array of sources like the Bible or even historian records will find everything I have written credible enough. I guess it is all a matter of belief because everything you told me earlier contradicts what you spout out right now with your petty mockeries and at the same time, it basically opposes other Archaelogical evidence or even anyone else who does believe in "Noah." But again you are entitled to believe whatever it is you wish. I was taking this all from a non-secular view even though I do agree that there was a flood and there was a Mt.Ararat which Noah's family dilated life upon.

[Nimrod]

The origin of the Urarteans is given below. The following will now seek to present the fact that there was intervention among "Armenian" and Urarteans and as to WHY it is complicated to trace the exact origins of Armenians, simply because they agreed to adopt the "Biblical" knowledge some say, which is called "Aramai." Please observe:

http://www.calstatela.edu/orgs/asa/main/ArmoHeritage/EarlyAges/earlyCivilization.html

Armenia has one of the oldest indigenous cultures of any of the peoples of the USSR. Armenia is also credited as being the first state to establish Christianity as its official religion.

Contemporary scholarship suggests that the Armenians are descendants of various indigenous people who meld (10th through 7th century BC) with the Urarteans (Ararateans); while classical historians and geographers cite the tradition that the Armenians migrated into their homeland from Thrace and Phrygia (Herodotus, Strabo), or even Thessaly (Strabo). These views are not necessarily contradictory, since present-day Armenians are undoubtedly an amalgam of several peoples, autochthonous (Hayasa-Azzi, Nairi, Hurrians, etc.) and immigrant, who emerged as one linguistic family around 600 BC.

The Armenian language, like Greek and Iranian, is a part of the Indo-European family of languages that is spoken from north India, through Afghanistan, Iran, Armenia, and Greece into Europe and European Russia. The Armenian alphabet, devised early in the fifth century by St. Mesrob (Mashtotz)--who also produced a script for the Christian Georgians and Caucasian Albanians--is unique, although based in part on Greek uncials and the Armazi variety of Aramaic script. Armenia was located near the cradles of ancient civilizations--the Mesopotamian, bordering immediately to the south; the Egyptian in the southwest; and the Indus to the east--and was affected by each, but most significantly by Mesopotamian. The name "Urartu", in the form "Urashtu", occurs frequently in Babylonian inscriptions. The earliest known mention of the "Armenian" people (as the Armenoi), occurs in the writings of the Greek historian Hecataeus of Miletus (c. 550 BC), and of "Armenia" (Armina) in the Behistun [Bisitun] inscription of Darius I (c. 520 BC).

Present-day scholarship shows that Armenia experienced its Lower Paleolithic period from 500,000 BC or earlier. A change from nomadic to sedentary life occurred in the Neolithic period in Armenia (c. 6,000 BC) about the same time as in the lower valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the headwaters of which rise in Armenia. Chalcolithic culture (4,000 BC) relates Armenia to the Caucasus, Iran and Mesopotamia; while the Bronze Age in Armenia began c. 3,200 BC and extended up to and coexisted with the era of iron smelting and working which was inaugurated c. 1,000 BC. Erevan (Erebuni, Arin-Berd), the capital of the Armenian SSR, was founded before 782 BC, when we find it first mentioned in historic sources.

The rise of Achaemenid Persia (c. 550 BC) brought Armenia into the Iranian socio-political-economic orbit, and it became a satrapy (number XIII) of the empire under the first semi-autonomous Armenian dynasty, the Orontids [Avestan aurand, mighty hero; Pahlevi, arvand; Armenian, ervand], related to the Persian royal house.

The Persian trade and defense system encouraged significant expansion of Armenian travel and commerce. The classical description of Armenia under the Achaemenids is that of Xenophon, who crossed it with his Ten Thousand (c. 400 BC). It is during this period that the Armenian nobility adopted Mazdaism and saw it merge with indigenous native beliefs of which we have only scant knowledge.These views are not necessarily contradictory, since present-day Armenians are undoubtedly an amalgam of several peoples, autochthonous (Hayasa-Azzi, Nairi, Hurrians, etc.) and immigrant, who emerged as one linguistic family around 600 BC. These views are not necessarily contradictory, since present-day Armenians are undoubtedly an amalgam of several peoples, autochthonous (Hayasa-Azzi, Nairi, Hurrians, etc.) and immigrant, who emerged as one linguistic family around 600 BC. [B][U]The name "Urartu", in the form "Urashtu", occurs frequently in Babylonian inscriptions. The earliest known mention of the "Armenian" people (as the Armenoi), occurs in the writings of the Greek historian Hecataeus of Miletus (c. 550 BC), and of "Armenia" (Armina) in the Behistun [Bisitun] inscription of Darius I (c. 520 BC).

[Nimrod]

The Yerevantunis were the main controllers of the "ARmenians'" segregated kingdoms. Just to be clear once again I have provided you all proof:

http://virtuals.compulink.gr/armen-yth/pages/hst2uk.htm

Around 550 BC the Persians led by Cyrus the Great, displaced the Medes. The rise of the Persians brought Armenia under the Persian rule from the 6th century until 334 BC, becoming thus a part of the empire under the first semi-autonomous Armenian dynasty, the Yervantunis (Orontids). Armenia was divided into provinces called satrapies, each with a local governing satrap supervised by a Persian secretary. The Armenians paid heavy tribute to the Persians, who continually requisitioned silver, rugs, horses, slaves and military supplies.
The Persian culture and Zoroastrian religion greatly influenced the spiritual life of the Armenian people who absorbed features of Zoroastrianism into their polytheistic and animistic indigenous beliefs. The Persian trade and defense system, however, encouraged significant expansion of Armenian travel and commerce.

Taking advantage of a civil war among the Persians, the Yervantunis ruled continuously until the Persian Empire fell to Alexander the Great and conquered southern Armenia. The Armenians in the north were able to resist the advance of Alexander, defeating the armies of General Menon. At that time the Greeks appointed a new satrap, named Mithranes, to govern Armenia.
The Greek Empire, which stretched across Asia and Europe, was one in which cities rapidly grew, spreading Hellenistic architecture, religion and philosophies. Armenian culture too, absorbed Greek influences.
As centers at the crossroads of trade routes connecting China, India and Central Asia with the Mediterranean, Armenian cities throve on economic exchange. A new merchant and artisan social class developed as cities multiplied. Armenian's agricultural economy soon became one based one trade and monetary exchange. The Greeks also infused Armenian's version of Zoroastrianism with facets of their religious beliefs.

Alexander the Great died in 323 BC. The Seleucid rule that followed, was weak and disorganized. Several Armenian princes, profiting from the situation, broke away to establish semi-independent kingdoms, notably,

Greater Armenia,
Lesser Armenia and
Tzork (Sophene),


the Yervantunis however, continued to retain control over the largest of three kingdoms into which Armenia itself had been divided.


A coup d'etat in 200 BC ended the Yervantunis rule in Greater Armenia, with Artashes (Artaxias) declaring himself King of Greater Armenia and founding a new dynasty. It was to become the most powerful in Armenian history. A pact of alliance with the rising Romans left Greater Armenia free from a Seleucid threat, and Artashes expanded his territory by defining the borders of his land, spanning an area from the River Halys to the Caspian Sea and from the Tigris River to the Kur, and unifying the Armenian people. Mindful of the Romans and the Parthians, Artashes set up a number of semi-independent buffer states, which earned him the name of "World Conqueror". Although the official language of the Armenian court had for a time been Aramaic, then Persian and later Greek, Artashes encouraged the adoption of Armenian as the language of the people.

The Greek geographer Strabo justifiably considers Artashes' greatest achievement to be the linguistic and cultural unification of Armenia insuring thus the cultural survival of Armenia amid the powerful influences of the surrounding Persian and Hellenistic cultures.

the Yervantunis however, continued to retain control over the largest of three kingdoms into which Armenia itself had been divided. the Yervantunis however, continued to retain control over the largest of three kingdoms into which Armenia itself had been divided.

[Nimrod]

Originally posted by Nimrod Here is a source backing up what you so proudly claim as "myth." Now, keep in mind that none of this is my interpretation or knowledge for I will let you play with that. Also, do you even KNOW who the Orontids are? They are a Dynasty not an ethnic culture. I really do not see your "debate" on this because no one is trying to say anyone is "great" if anything we are trying to make them GREAT right now present-day but as for now I will highlight the proof since you have trouble with comprehension of all this spontaneous knowledge, but anyway observe the following:

http://www.ercole.net/hayaser/history.asp?history=25

The appearance of the Armenians in history is linked with the last great wave of Indo-European peoples that flooded the table lands of Eastern Anatolia in about the seventh century before Christ. There were many migrations in the area during this period. Each in turn, the Cimmerians, the Scythians and the Medes brought down the kingdoms of the Phrygians (676-675) and the empire of the Assyrians (612) and finally gave the coup de grace to the kingdom of Urartu.

It is not improbable that the advance of the armenioi towards the east was a consequence of the collapse of the Phrygian kingdom. Herodotus (vii, 73) and Eudoxus (quoted by Stephen of Byzantium) connect the Armenians with the Phygians. But the question of the origins of the Armenian people is far more complicated than this.

If the Armenian language is Indo-European - and indeed, it is an independent branch of this linguistic family - the somatic characteristics of the Armenians are local and classified anthropologically as the Armenoid type: average to tall stature; strong bones; white skin; dark hair and eyes; abundant body hair; long head; short, high skull; long face; narrow, jutting nose, often aquiline; and relatively short legs. All of this would confirm the decisive role of autochthonous features in the ethnic configuration of the Armenian people, while the Indo-European origins of the migrants would be remotely echoed in traditional epics telling of the feats and deeds of a race of tall, blond heroes with blue eyes. This is, in fact, how one of the more popular gods, Vahagn, is depicted in the hymn of his birth. So we can safely say that the Armenians are another example of a fairly common phenomenon in history whereby the language of a conquering minority prevails, but without any effect whatsoever on the influence of climatic and environmental factors on the prevailing physionomy.

The main autochthonous feature - the Urartian - underlying the ethnic composition of the Armenians can definitely be narrowed down to similar "Human" population groups that can be seen as the earliest inhabitants, in the historical period, of the regions surrounding the lake ofVan. All that can be said of this aboriginal or "Anatolian" population is that it was neither Indo-European nor Semitic, even though there had been infiltrations of Indo-European elements from the earliest days onwards, the first of these occurring at the beginning of the second millennium. The Hittite empire was founded and there were small kingdoms of unrelated peoples, such as the Hayasa and the Mitanni, on its eastern and southern borders. It seems that there had already been a symbiosis in these kingdoms between the invading Indo-European warriors and the indigenous tribes. Among these latter, above all, in certain central areas, close to the Human stock, certain traces of language reveal the presence of "Caucasian" populations that might also have had some affinity with the Hurrians.

From this panorama, we can easily conclude that, as early as the second millenium, the regions east of the Euphrates, between the Pontian promontories and Northern Mesopotamia, were a point of encounter for Anatolian, Caucasian and Indo-European tribes.

Nevertheless, certain recent studies bring quite new perspectives to this view, according to which the land of historical Armenia was the cradle of the great family of Indo-European peoples and the starting point of their first mass migrations. If this theory, put forward by Ivanov and Gamkrelidze, were accepted — and this would completely upset early Indo-European history and geography — we would have to conclude also that the Indo-European dimension of the Armenian language has its most ancient roots in loco, even though it was later subjected to the stratification effects of waves of migration from the west and/or from the north east.

The kingdom of Urartu collapsed towards the end of the seventh or beginning of the sixth century b.c. The Greeks called the new ethnopolitical entity that succeeded the Urartians the armenioi.

It is first mentioned in the Old Persian form arminiya in the cuneiform three-language Behistun inscription by Darius I (c. 520) as one of the peoples subjugated to his rule. The new ethnopolitical situation remained substantially unaltered until the extinction of the Armenian kingdom of the Bagratids (Bagratuni) in 1045 a. d., when the Turkish tribes made their arrival on the political scene in Anatolia. But even after these changes in the late Middle Ages, the Armenian people were to go on living in the same regions for another 900 years, until the tragic depopulation of most of those parts during the First World War.

The Orontid (Ervanduni) dynasty, the periods ofAchaemenian and Macedonian dominion

The first Armenian dynasty was that of the Ervanduni, from the name Errand (Eruand), known in Greek historiography in the form Orontes or Aroandes. But it was a short-lived sovereignty, for the Ervanduni were soon subjugated to the rule of Darius I, who shared out their territory between the two satrapies, the xin and thexvin, of his administrative system. Thus, among the twenty-three populations dominated by Darius were the Armenians, alongside the Medes and the Susians, in Adapadana of Persepolis.

Then began a long period of Achaemenian supremacy for Armenia, which still took place within the framework of a certain internal administrative automomy. It was led by its own dynasty, the Orontids who, being related to the Persian court, acted as satraps, or provincial governors. The political supremacy of the Achaemenians was accompanied by a strong influence, particularly in the use of the Persian language, which is revealed by the large number of words, often fairly common ones, borrowed from Persian.

Only Macedonian expansion put an end to the Achaemenian domination, after the victory of Arbela in 331- A general tendency towards autonomy ensued, above all in the central-eastern regions, which were to be called Greater Armenia (Armenia Major).

Xenophon had already spoken of "Western Armenia" as a distinct administrative entity, but subordinated to "Armenia" (Anabasis ra, 5,17), which was led not by a satrap, but by a hyparchos, that is, a lieutenant. Further developments, the consequences of various political and cultural factors, were to result in the formation of two distinct territorial entities known respectively, around the middle of the fourth century, as Greater Armenia and Armenia Minor. The former was to include the eastern regions of the Euphrates, while the latter extended roughly over the territory delineated by the present-day cities of Sivas, Erzincan and Malatya, west and north of the upper elbow of the Euphrates.
Although it often possessed its own rulers, this area was to be deeply affected by the political and cultural influence of the Hellenistic world, finding itself in direct contact with the heavily Hellenized regions of the Pontus and Cappadocia. Greater Armenia, on the other hand, which was more protected from this point of view, was to have a more harmonious development, with greater emphasis on Armenian identity.


The kingdom of Urartu collapsed towards the end of the seventh or beginning of the sixth century b.c. The Greeks called the new ethnopolitical entity that succeeded the Urartians the armenioi. The kingdom of Urartu collapsed towards the end of the seventh or beginning of the sixth century b.c. The Greeks called the new ethnopolitical entity that succeeded the Urartians the armenioi. It is first mentioned in the Old Persian form arminiya in the cuneiform three-language Behistun inscription by Darius I (c. 520) as one of the peoples subjugated to his rule. The new ethnopolitical situation remained substantially unaltered until the extinction of the Armenian kingdom of the Bagratids (Bagratuni) in 1045 a. d., when the Turkish tribes made their arrival on the political scene in Anatolia. But even after these changes in the late Middle Ages, the Armenian people were to go on living in the same regions for another 900 years, until the tragic depopulation of most of those parts during the First World War. It is first mentioned in the Old Persian form arminiya in the cuneiform three-language Behistun inscription by Darius I (c. 520) as one of the peoples subjugated to his rule. The new ethnopolitical situation remained substantially unaltered until the extinction of the Armenian kingdom of the Bagratids (Bagratuni) in 1045 a. d., when the Turkish tribes made their arrival on the political scene in Anatolia. But even after these changes in the late Middle Ages, the Armenian people were to go on living in the same regions for another 900 years, until the tragic depopulation of most of those parts during the First World War.

[Nimrod]

Here is where I prove that the oldest association to Armenians are descended down from our ancestry of "Hittites." Observe:

http://www.umd.umich.edu/dept/armenian/papazian/hovannisian.html

The history of the Armenian state and people spans over three thousand years and six continents. The Armenian homeland is located on the Armenian plateau, central and eastern Anatolia and southwestern Caucasia--the highlands which dominate the lowlands of Greater Syria and Mesopotamia to the south. The present Armenian Republic, which consists of perhaps a tenth of historic Armenia, is located in the South Caucasus on the eastern end of the historic "Armenian" plateau. The Armenian diaspora, which was created in stages following major invasions and devastations of the homeland, has grown to include colonies on the five major continents and now Australia. Interestingly, there are now more Armenians in the diaspora than in the Armenian Republic, which makes their history a world-wide phenomenon.

The Armenians lived at the crossroads of the ancient world, straddling the trade routes from China, Persia, India, and Arabia to and from Russia and Europe. Those who dominated the Armenian plateau were in a position to control these lucrative trade routes, to utilize the fertile valleys which stretch chiefly on the east-west axis, and to dominate the lowlands to the south. Accordingly, Armenia has been an area of perpetual war and its history determined by international circumstances.

Armenia has been rich and independent at times, particularly under the dynasties of the Ervandids (Orontids), the Artashesians (Artaxids), the Arshakunis (Arsacids), and, during the ninth and tenth centuries, the Bagratunis (Bagratids). At other times, when surrounded by powerful empires or invaded by militant peoples, such as the Mongols or the Central Asiatic Turks, Armenia found itself only autonomous, semi-autonomous, or completely under foreign dominion. Only recently has a second independent Armenian Republic emerged as a result of the demise of the Soviet Union.

Richard Hovannisian, the dean of Armenian scholars in the United States, brought together sixteen expert scholars from the United States and abroad to write a comprehensive history of the Armenians from earliest times until today using the most recent scholarship and resources. This two volume work, dealing with internal as well as external affairs, provides us with the most dependable general history of the Armenians written in the English language.

The earliest Armenian history was related to the Hittites and the Urartians as well as with the peoples of Mesopotamia. After that, Armenian history was intertwined for a thousand years with the Persian empire--in its various manifestations--with which it shared a dynasty and much of its high culture.

With the conquests of Alexander the Great, Armenia, although not conquered by Alexander or his successors, witnessed the Hellenization of its upper classes and a brief empire under king Tigran (Tigranes) the Great, circa 90 B.C.

With the expansion of Rome to the east, and the humbling of Tigran, Armenia became an area of contention between Rome and Persia, finally being divided between them in A.D. 387. During the early Christian period, Armenia received Christianity via Mesopotamia and Greater Syria, and later through the Greeks of Cappadocia, being the first state to establish Christianity as its official religion.

Armenia experienced complex relations with Byzantium, which sought to displace the native nobility and to control Armenia directly through the imperial bureaucracy, thus weakening Armenia's social structure and the determination of her people to defend the land against foreign invaders. This Byzantine policy was to have negative and finally fatal consequences for the Empire.

The invasions of the Arabs, the Seljuk Turks, the Mongols, various Turkmen tribes, all led in stages to a mixture of outsiders among the native Armenians and the dilution of their ranks on the plateau.

Branches of the Armenian nobility, the Hetumids and the Rubenids, established an Armenian kingdom in Cilicia, in the southern part of Asia Minor bordering on the Mediterranean, a kingdom which had close relations with the Crusaders who established minor principalities to the south and east. With the failure of the Crusades, and the rupture of Armenia's advantageous relations with the Mongols when the Mongols accepted Islam, the Armenian kingdom was overcome in the fourteenth century, and its last king, a Lusignan, journeyed to Europe seeking help. The Cilician kingdom, it should be noted, produced a high quality of art, architecture, and literature.

These topics are brilliantly covered in the first volume, chiefly by Nina Garsoian, Professor Emeritus of Columbia University, who reaches the highest standards of the use of primary resources and lucid writing. Other topics in this first volume include Armenian literature, art, and society.

The fall of the Cilician kingdom left only isolated pockets of semiautonomous Armenian life--in Zeitun in the mountains of Cilicia, in the mountains of Sasun in central Anatolia, and in Mountainous Karabagh (Artsakh in Armenian) along the eastern border of the highland. These areas, plus the diaspora, were to be the cradles of the Armenian independence movement.

The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are the dark ages of Armenia. It was completely devastated by Turkmen tribes, the hordes of Tamerlane, and the Persian Safavids. Finally, the Ottoman Turks, who having conquered Constantinople and part of the Balkans, marched eastward to conquer an already devastated historic Armenia.

In analogy with the Muslim system, the Ottomans established the Armenians as a millet, a civil-religious minority governed by the Armenian Church under the aegis of the ruling Muslims. As the Ottomans declined in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Muslim rule became more heavy-handed and unbearable. European ideas of the enlightenment, constitutional government, and the rights of man influenced both the Armenian and the Ottoman elites, causing even more dissatisfaction with the corrupt and autocratic system.

From the European point of view, what to do with the rotting Ottoman Empire became the Eastern Question, and in 1879, when the Armenians appealed to the advancing Russians at San Stefano for succour, the Armenian Question reached the world scene. Widespread massacres of Armenians by Sultan Abdul Hamid 11 in 1894-1896 were followed by the Cilician pogroms of 1909, and culminated in the Armenian Genocide from 1915-22 in which the Armenian plateau was essentially denuded of Armenians. The complexities of the Eastern Question and the Armenian Question are well-covered by Professor Hovannisian, who has written many volumes on this topic.

The Russians, from the time of Peter the Great, began incursions into the Caucasus encouraged by the indigenous Christians of Georgia and Caucasian Armenia. The Russians under Catherine the Great in two Turkish wars took the north coast of the Black Sea and advanced into the Balkans and into Caucasia. Soon, the Russians annexed Georgia and eastern Armenia, which had been weakened by the depredations of Agha Mohammad, the founder of the Qajar dynasty. The fear of Russian expansion into the Ottoman Empire was the root cause of the Crimean War. When the Russians reached the gates of Constantinople during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 and signed the Treaty of San Stefano granting Armenians security in eastern Turkey, the European powers intervened and forced the Russians to sign the Treaty of Berlin, which denied the Armenians Russian protection.

The outbreak of World War I provided the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire with a cover to settle the Armenian Question once and for all. The result was a genocide which all but wiped out the Armenian population of Anatolia.

Following the Armenian Genocide, a small independent republic was established in the territory which lay within the Russian Empire. That republic was to last for only two years until, attacked from the west by the Nationalist Turks and from the North by the Bolshevik Russians, it succumbed to Soviet rule.

Volume II ends with chapters on Soviet Armenia, Armenians in America, and Armenians in the general diaspora. It is a pity that the present independent Republic of Armenia and the struggle of the Armenians for Mountainous Karabagh, which currently draw attention in the headlines, do not fall into the purview of this study. One will have to turn to other books for a treatment of these topics.

Those seeking a scholarly and dependable overview of the history of the Armenians, and not just Armenia itself, will find this work a treasure trove of information and explanation. These books should find a home in any library which has a collection on world affairs. It will be useful to scholarly non-specialists, students of all levels, and the educated public. Its extensive bibliography will prove useful to those who would like to do further research on particular topics. Professor Hewsen, of Rowan College, has provided excellent and original maps throughout. These two volumes should stand the test of time and will not be easily replaced by any general history.

The earliest Armenian history was related to the Hittites and the Urartians as well as with the peoples of Mesopotamia. The earliest Armenian history was related to the Hittites and the Urartians as well as with the peoples of Mesopotamia.

[Nimrod]

Here is a source backing up what you so proudly claim as "myth." Now, keep in mind that none of this is my interpretation or knowledge for I will let you play with that. Also, do you even KNOW who the Orontids are? They are a Dynasty not an ethnic culture. I really do not see your "debate" on this because no one is trying to say anyone is "great" if anything we are trying to make them GREAT right now present-day but as for now I will highlight the proof since you have trouble with comprehension of all this spontaneous knowledge, but anyway observe the following:


The appearance of the Armenians in history is linked with the last great wave of Indo-European peoples that flooded the table lands of Eastern Anatolia in about the seventh century before Christ. There were many migrations in the area during this period. Each in turn, the Cimmerians, the Scythians and the Medes brought down the kingdoms of the Phrygians (676-675) and the empire of the Assyrians (612) and finally gave the coup de grace to the kingdom of Urartu.

It is not improbable that the advance of the armenioi towards the east was a consequence of the collapse of the Phrygian kingdom. Herodotus (vii, 73) and Eudoxus (quoted by Stephen of Byzantium) connect the Armenians with the Phygians. But the question of the origins of the Armenian people is far more complicated than this.

If the Armenian language is Indo-European - and indeed, it is an independent branch of this linguistic family - the somatic characteristics of the Armenians are local and classified anthropologically as the Armenoid type: average to tall stature; strong bones; white skin; dark hair and eyes; abundant body hair; long head; short, high skull; long face; narrow, jutting nose, often aquiline; and relatively short legs. All of this would confirm the decisive role of autochthonous features in the ethnic configuration of the Armenian people, while the Indo-European origins of the migrants would be remotely echoed in traditional epics telling of the feats and deeds of a race of tall, blond heroes with blue eyes. This is, in fact, how one of the more popular gods, Vahagn, is depicted in the hymn of his birth. So we can safely say that the Armenians are another example of a fairly common phenomenon in history whereby the language of a conquering minority prevails, but without any effect whatsoever on the influence of climatic and environmental factors on the prevailing physionomy.

The main autochthonous feature - the Urartian - underlying the ethnic composition of the Armenians can definitely be narrowed down to similar "Human" population groups that can be seen as the earliest inhabitants, in the historical period, of the regions surrounding the lake ofVan. All that can be said of this aboriginal or "Anatolian" population is that it was neither Indo-European nor Semitic, even though there had been infiltrations of Indo-European elements from the earliest days onwards, the first of these occurring at the beginning of the second millennium. The Hittite empire was founded and there were small kingdoms of unrelated peoples, such as the Hayasa and the Mitanni, on its eastern and southern borders. It seems that there had already been a symbiosis in these kingdoms between the invading Indo-European warriors and the indigenous tribes. Among these latter, above all, in certain central areas, close to the Human stock, certain traces of language reveal the presence of "Caucasian" populations that might also have had some affinity with the Hurrians.

From this panorama, we can easily conclude that, as early as the second millenium, the regions east of the Euphrates, between the Pontian promontories and Northern Mesopotamia, were a point of encounter for Anatolian, Caucasian and Indo-European tribes.

Nevertheless, certain recent studies bring quite new perspectives to this view, according to which the land of historical Armenia was the cradle of the great family of Indo-European peoples and the starting point of their first mass migrations. If this theory, put forward by Ivanov and Gamkrelidze, were accepted — and this would completely upset early Indo-European history and geography — we would have to conclude also that the Indo-European dimension of the Armenian language has its most ancient roots in loco, even though it was later subjected to the stratification effects of waves of migration from the west and/or from the north east.

The kingdom of Urartu collapsed towards the end of the seventh or beginning of the sixth century b.c. The Greeks called the new ethnopolitical entity that succeeded the Urartians the armenioi.

It is first mentioned in the Old Persian form arminiya in the cuneiform three-language Behistun inscription by Darius I (c. 520) as one of the peoples subjugated to his rule. The new ethnopolitical situation remained substantially unaltered until the extinction of the Armenian kingdom of the Bagratids (Bagratuni) in 1045 a. d., when the Turkish tribes made their arrival on the political scene in Anatolia. But even after these changes in the late Middle Ages, the Armenian people were to go on living in the same regions for another 900 years, until the tragic depopulation of most of those parts during the First World War.

The Orontid (Ervanduni) dynasty, the periods ofAchaemenian and Macedonian dominion

The first Armenian dynasty was that of the Ervanduni, from the name Errand (Eruand), known in Greek historiography in the form Orontes or Aroandes. But it was a short-lived sovereignty, for the Ervanduni were soon subjugated to the rule of Darius I, who shared out their territory between the two satrapies, the xin and thexvin, of his administrative system. Thus, among the twenty-three populations dominated by Darius were the Armenians, alongside the Medes and the Susians, in Adapadana of Persepolis.

Then began a long period of Achaemenian supremacy for Armenia, which still took place within the framework of a certain internal administrative automomy. It was led by its own dynasty, the Orontids who, being related to the Persian court, acted as satraps, or provincial governors. The political supremacy of the Achaemenians was accompanied by a strong influence, particularly in the use of the Persian language, which is revealed by the large number of words, often fairly common ones, borrowed from Persian.

Only Macedonian expansion put an end to the Achaemenian domination, after the victory of Arbela in 331- A general tendency towards autonomy ensued, above all in the central-eastern regions, which were to be called Greater Armenia (Armenia Major).

Xenophon had already spoken of "Western Armenia" as a distinct administrative entity, but subordinated to "Armenia" (Anabasis ra, 5,17), which was led not by a satrap, but by a hyparchos, that is, a lieutenant. Further developments, the consequences of various political and cultural factors, were to result in the formation of two distinct territorial entities known respectively, around the middle of the fourth century, as Greater Armenia and Armenia Minor. The former was to include the eastern regions of the Euphrates, while the latter extended roughly over the territory delineated by the present-day cities of Sivas, Erzincan and Malatya, west and north of the upper elbow of the Euphrates.
Although it often possessed its own rulers, this area was to be deeply affected by the political and cultural influence of the Hellenistic world, finding itself in direct contact with the heavily Hellenized regions of the Pontus and Cappadocia. Greater Armenia, on the other hand, which was more protected from this point of view, was to have a more harmonious development, with greater emphasis on Armenian identity.


The kingdom of Urartu collapsed towards the end of the seventh or beginning of the sixth century b.c. The Greeks called the new ethnopolitical entity that succeeded the Urartians the armenioi. The kingdom of Urartu collapsed towards the end of the seventh or beginning of the sixth century b.c. The Greeks called the new ethnopolitical entity that succeeded the Urartians the armenioi. It is first mentioned in the Old Persian form arminiya in the cuneiform three-language Behistun inscription by Darius I (c. 520) as one of the peoples subjugated to his rule. The new ethnopolitical situation remained substantially unaltered until the extinction of the Armenian kingdom of the Bagratids (Bagratuni) in 1045 a. d., when the Turkish tribes made their arrival on the political scene in Anatolia. But even after these changes in the late Middle Ages, the Armenian people were to go on living in the same regions for another 900 years, until the tragic depopulation of most of those parts during the First World War. It is first mentioned in the Old Persian form arminiya in the cuneiform three-language Behistun inscription by Darius I (c. 520) as one of the peoples subjugated to his rule. The new ethnopolitical situation remained substantially unaltered until the extinction of the Armenian kingdom of the Bagratids (Bagratuni) in 1045 a. d., when the Turkish tribes made their arrival on the political scene in Anatolia. But even after these changes in the late Middle Ages, the Armenian people were to go on living in the same regions for another 900 years, until the tragic depopulation of most of those parts during the First World War.

[Nimrod]

Originally posted by whitelotus why should we hate them ? its just like the hatred they had for us, its rather hypocritical.

She is only a few peas short of a casserole when she said we are a "race." Even still, we have a right to "hate" Turks.

by hating turks, raping there woman, we are nothing better then a turk.

i for one, do not hate all turks. Because todays generation doesnt even know about the genocide, its not in there text books, the government covers it up from its own people.

did you know that the reason why many of our ancestores survived, was because many turkish families took us in and hid us from the soldiers and government ? They gave us shelter, protection , food and water.

If you want to hate someone, hate the generation of soldiers and the government who slaughtered us, not the newer generation who isnt responsible for anything

hate the government for the millions they spend campaining against the genocide ever happening, while its economy fails and people dont have electricity.

hate the government who denys us, rather then all turks. Its rather stupid to hate a whole group of people for the actions its dumb ancestors commited.

we should be more open minded about this, rather then infest in more hatred. It takes us no where but back, we should advance in this world, rather then sitting and xxxxxing about something that happened in our past. We should rise together, and try changing some things, getting genocide bills passed, getting into politics, into the media etc

armenians are so busy hating one another, that they never get anywhere in the world. we are not united, we are seperating into groups and one day, there will be no more of us left.