| Kingdom of Sophene Ծոփքի թագավորություն |
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| Capital | Karkathiokerta | |||
| Language(s) | Armenian | |||
| Government | Monarchy | |||
| King | Zareh | |||
| Historical era | Hellenistic Age | |||
| - gained independence from the Achaemenid Empire | 3rd century BC | |||
| - conquered (or reconquered) by Tigranes the Great | 94 BC | |||
| History of Armenia | |
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This article is part of a series |
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| Prehistory 2400 BC - 590 BC |
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| Name of Armenia | |
| Hayk | |
| Hayasa-Azzi | |
| Nairi · Urartu | |
| Antiquity 591 BC - 428 AD |
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| Orontid Armenia | |
| Kingdom of Armenia | |
| Kingdom of Sophene | |
| Kingdom of Commagene | |
| Lesser Armenia | |
| Roman Armenia | |
| Dynasties: | |
| Orontid · Artaxiad · Arsacid | |
| Middle Ages 429 - 1375 |
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| Marzpanate Period | |
| Byzantine Armenia | |
| Sassanid Armenia | |
| Arab conquest of Armenia | |
| Emirate of Armenia | |
| Bagratid Armenia | |
| Kingdom of Vaspurakan | |
| Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia | |
| Zakarid Armenia | |
| Dynasties: | |
| Bagratid · Rubenid · Artsruni | |
| Foreign Rule 1376 - 1918 |
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| Persian · Ottoman · Russian | |
| Principality of Khachen | |
| Armenian Oblast | |
| Armenian national movement | |
| Hamidian massacres | |
| Armenian Genocide | |
| Contemporary 1918 - present |
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| Democratic Republic of Armenia | |
| Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic | |
| Nagorno-Karabakh War | |
| Republic of Armenia | |
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Armenia Portal |
The Kingdom of Sophene (Armenian: Ծոփքի Թագավորութիւն) was an ancient Armenian kingdom.[1][2][3] Founded around the 3rd century BC the kingdom maintained independence until 90s BC when Tigranes the Great conquered these territories as part of his empire.[3] An offshoot of this kingdom was the Kingdom of Commagene, when the Seleucids detached Commagene from Sophene.[1]
According to Georgian scholars I.ADjavashvili and Giorgi Melikishvili, Sophene (Supani) was populated by an ancient Nakh tribe, the Tzov, the state of which is called Tsobena in ancient Georgian historiography.[4][5][6] Sophene was part of the kingdom of Urartu in the 8th-7th centuries BC. After unifying the region with his kingdom in the early 8th century BC, king Argishti I of Urartu resettled many of its inhabitants to his newly built city of Erebuni.
Sophene then became a province of the newly emerged ancient Armenian Kingdom of Orontids around 600 BC.
After Alexander the Great's campaigns in 330s BC and the subsequent collapse of the Achaemenid Empire, it became one of the first regions of Armenia to be exposed to Greek influence and adopted some aspects of Greek culture. Sophene remained part of the newly independent kingdom of Greater Armenia. Around the 3rd century BC, the Seleucid Empire forced Sophene to split from Greater Armenia, giving rise to the Kingdom of Sophene. The kingdom was ruled by a branch of the Armenian royal dynasty of Orontids.[1]
The kingdom's capital was Carcathiocerta, identified as the now abandoned town-site of Egil on the Tigris river north of Diyarbakir. However, its largest settlement and only true city was Arsamosata, located further to the north. Arsamosata was founded in the 3rd century B.C. and survived in a contracted state until perhaps the early 13th century A.D.[7] Though the kingdom's rulers were Armenian, the ethnicity of the kingdom was mixed, having a population of Armenian descent and a population of Semitic descent, infiltrating from the South, a situation still existent at the time of the Crusades.[8]
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