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The country name "Armenia" is a creation of the second half of the 6th century BC and means ‘the land where the people of Aram have settled’. The first to mention this country name are thought to be the Aramaeans as Armināiā,[1] but there is no written record to confirm this, but the chancellery scribes of the Achaemenid kings of Persia were Aramaeans and it may well be that the Persians adopted the country name Armināiā writing it as Armina. The next person to mention the Armenians and their country was the Greek geographer Hecataeus of Miletus as Armenioi.
The country representing Armenia, the highlands to the east of peninsular Anatolia, was the previous Kingdom of Urartu. The borders of Armenia have changed so often that one can only give a rough description of it, such as: to the east up to the confluence of the rivers Kur and Araxes, to the south River Araxes, south of the Kashiari range of mountains up to Nisibis (Mtsbin), to the west the River Euphrates and to the north the Pontus range of mountains, the southern plains of Georgia and the Kur river.
The ethnic term 'Armenian' does not exist in the vocabulary of the Armenians and it cannot be explained in their language. Armenians call themselves Hay (pl. Hayk’) and their country Hayastan.[2] The term Armenian, when it was created in the 6th century BC, originally denoted the Hay people, the Indo-European interlopers, who entered Urartu.[3]
It took a long time, perhaps 600–700 years for the population of the ancient Urartu to assimilate and be called Hays and Armenians by other nations.[4] The Armenians belong to Indo-European language group, which prevailed in the highlands because of the wave by wave arrival of the Hay migrants over a period of at least 600 years, whereas the Urartian language was drifting due to bilingualism and assimilation, even though they represented a higher percentage of the population of the highlands, which is noticeable in the physiology of the present day Armenians.
The Hays (Proto-Armenians) are mentioned, for the first time, in the Iliad of Homer as allies of Priam of Troy under the name of Paeonian,[5] which is the Greek rendering of the name Hay, i.e. Παι = Hay (P > H, cf. pater > hayr) + ον or οντ = being, in the sense of creature (cf. ontology, ontogeny) + ες, plural suffix, therefore ‘Hay Creatures’.
Some scholars have expressed the view that the Paeonians (Hays) had arrived in central Balkans at the time when the Dorians were entering Greece.[6] This view cannot be correct, since Homer does not mention the Dorians, who were entering Greece at the time of the Trojan War, and it takes an organised country, Paeonia, in order to send two battalions to participate in the war as allies of Priam. It appears the Paeonians had arrived in central Balkans, perhaps, with the Mycanaean Proto-Greeks and first settled in Pelagonia (Πελ > Hay (P > H and L > Y) + αγον = assembly + ες, plural suffix, therefore: ‘Assembly of Hays’), around Lake Lychnidus (this lake name will be remembered in later Armenia), the present Lake Ochrid, east of the Briges (later Phrygians).[7]
But where did the Hays come from, who were they? Since wandering tribes or people do not leave traces behind, except for their dead and garbage, which are not sufficient for an archaeologist to express a firm opinion, since the garbage disintegrates and the dead cannot speak (this is the picture of a people a thousand to two years prior to the appearance in Anatolia of the Armenoid type with flat occiput), the evidence has come down to us via linguistics. The hieroglyphic inscriptions of the Proto-Armenians of Anatolia contain some ancient discarded and forgotten words which have their exact parallels, both in phonetics and meanings, in English and Teutonic languages, such as: English sore = Proto-Armenian sor, tap = tap’, ire = ira, door = dur, mass = mas, daddy = tati, tie = ti, day = ti, bit = pih, cwēn = kin, collective suffix –en (as in oxen) = an (the Proto-Armenians did not have the E phoneme), negative prefix un = an, etc. etc. But the English words quoted are the result of many years of development which had different phonetics in the past.
Consequently, we are left with a single name, a name of unique importance. The ancient Teutonic god Tir, also known as Tīw and Tiwaz, besides the Teutons was only known to the Hays of Paeonia and later Armenia. In Paeonia Tir was the supreme god, but in Armenia, under the hegemony of the Achaemenids, Ahura Mazta (Aramazd) became supreme and Tir his scribe, defender of arts and letters and god of oracles and dreams. No other nation besides the Teutonic people and the Armenians have such a god (scholars erroneously have derived the Armenian god from a secondary Persian god of Tishtrya).
It is noteworthy that even the Tīw version of the name of the god Tir was kept by the Armenians in the sense of God during the hieroglyphic age in Aram - the present usage of the word is Dew in the sense of evil spirit and demon. Also, the Armenian word T’iw, meaning number and to tell (stories), derives from this god’s name. The Armenians do not know of Odin (Wotin or Wotan), who became supreme, which may mean that the Hays had parted from the conglomerate of the Teutonic tribes prior to Tir’s loss of ascendancy.
The Hays’ first settlement place was Pelagonia, but due to the pressure of the newly arrived Dorians from the south, the Illyrians and the Dardanians from the north and north-west and the arrival of new waves of Hay wandering tribes, they spread to east up to the River Strymon and beyond and north to the present Titov-Veles (Bylazora) and Shtip (Astibus) and the surrounding lands of the present Yugoslavian Macedonia, when a new name of Paeonian was coined for them by the Greeks. The quarrels of the Greeks and the Pelagonians are mythologized in Hesiod’s Theogony in such an arcane and allegorical manner that one is averse to make even a reference to it. All the same, considering that Strabo makes the Titans Pelagonians (Book VII.40) it is worthwhile to mention lines 639 to 642 of the Theogony wherein the warriors ‘receive nectar and ambrosia, which the gods themselves consume [therefore, who is being fed!], and their spirit rise’, thus winning the battle against the Titans (Hays?) of Pelagonia.[8]
According to Homer, the Hays of Paeonia sent two battalions to help Priam in his war with the Mycenaeans; the first, at the beginning of the war,[9] under the leadership of Pyraechmes (Zarmayr), and the second, in the last days of the war, under Asteropaeus (this name is not remembered in Armenian legends).[10] The analysis of the name Pyraechmes is Πυρ = Fire + αίχμης = sharp point (of a spear, arrow, needle), therefore ‘Flame Tip’; The Armenian name Zarmayr is Z emphatic prefix + arm = sharp point + ayr = fire, therefore ‘Flame Tip’. However, besides the Iliad we know very little about the Paeonians until the 4th century BC, except for one or two of their migrations into Anatolia.[11] The various tribal names of the Paeonians that have reached us are: Pelagonians, Mygdonians, Odomantians, Siriopaeonians, Doberes, Paeoplai, Laioi and Agrianes.[12] The various known cities of Paeonia were: Bylazora, Astibus, Gordyina, Europos, Atalanta, Eidomenai and Amydon. The lakes mentioned in history are Lychnidus and Prasias and the centrally situated river Axios. We shall see all these names restated in later Armenia, the last settlement place of these people. Of the known Paeonian kings belonging to the 4th and 3rd centuries BC, the following have been mentioned in history by Greek writers. All the names are the Greek versions, and we do not know what the original versions were in the Hay language: Agis died in c.359 BC; Lykpeios of c.356 BC; Patraos of c.330 BC; Audoleon of c.300 BC; Leon of c.279 BC and Dropion, the last king, of c.260 BC. Also, a king of the Agrianes named Langaros of the time of Alexander the Great is mentioned by Arrian,[13] who is so impressed by the contingent of the Agrianians that he mentions them nearly fifty times in his history.
The Trojan War and the destruction of Troy is a historical fact. It is also a fact that the so called ‘Population Upheaval’ in Anatolia starts after the fall of Troy and is directly linked with this event. The participants at this war, besides the Trojans themselves, were the Mycanaeans, the enemies of the Trojans, from mainland Greece, Crete and the Aegean and Ionian islands. The allies of Troy mostly came from the Balkans and were Phrygians, Thracians, Mysians, Paeonians and the Pelasgians in addition to west Anatolians, such as Paphlagonians, Maeonians, Carians, Lycians, etc. The Hittites are not mentioned in the Iliad, but in the Odyssey XI.52-54 Eurypylus and his Hittite men are remembered. There are also minor city kingdoms of Anatolia that fought on the side of Priam (see Homer’s Iliad, Book II). The Anatolian participants returned to their nearby cities after the war, but not the Balkan hosts.
Scholarship within the context of ‘Population Upheavals’ have understood a migration of the Luwian people (Homer does not mention such a people nor does history after the 14th century BC) from the south-west of Anatolia to the south-east and have justified their illusion by claiming that the hieroglyphic inscriptions of tenth to 7th century found in Tabal, Melid, Commagene, Carchemish, Marash and later Cilicia, etc. are in the Luwian language.[14] They have completely overlooked the fact that the people wondering and ransacking Anatolia were of Balkan origin, foreigners who had participated in the Trojan War. The only Anatolian people forming part of the upheavals were the Apeshlaian Kaska and the Urumaeans, perhaps the people responsible for the destruction of the disintegrating Hittite kingdom, providing the final blow.
The participants of Balkan origin had come with their families, most probably at different times of a long drawn-out war,[15] otherwise they could not all be present in Ilium at the end of the war, and had no intention of going back. Besides, in the case of the Mycenaeans, would it have been possible for such a large number of fighting men to go back to their countries, when after ten or eleven years of the war their beached boats would not have been seaworthy, which we note in the troubles of Odysseus’ attempts to reach home?
The second point is the arrival of the Philistines in coastal Palestine, or, the House of Mukasa of Adana (one must disregard the supposed derivation from Mopsus); how did the first, the Mycanaeans, arrive in Palestine or the second, the Mukasa, manage to land in Adana? What of the names prevailing in the hieroglyphic inscriptions, such as Asatuwatimaza, Astiruwa, Iarairaisa, Katuwa, Kiyakia, Larazamasa/Palalam, Pisiri, Sastura, Sulumal, Tuwatis, Warpalawa/Urballa, Wasusaramimasa, etc? There is no evidence to derive these names from either the Hittite or the Luwian languages. Key to understanding the first Armenians are the hieroglyphic inscriptions, recently deciphered in full by Gabriel Soultanian. Beforehand, scholars did not understood the messages contained in these inscriptions, not even one single full sentence, with the exception of the Karatepe Bilingual of Azatiwata (the regent of Adana), also known as Asizatiwara, and this was translated only thanks to the Phoenician version.
It is obvious that the wandering people of the ‘Population Upheavals’ sometime on their way to the eastern parts of Anatolia branched out to two. The first conglomerate comprising the Phrygians, Mysians, Thracians, Paeonians and the Pelasgians of Thessaly settled at the confluence of the rivers Euphrates and Arsanias (Murat Su).[16] This alliance of five tribes became known as the Mushki, which name confirms the Phrygians of the branch. The Mysians too are confirmed by the city name of Mush.[17]
The remaining three divisions of the Mushki movement are conjectural, since there is no verification of this except for Tiglath-Pileser’s claim of ‘five kings’, which can only be requited by adding the names of the Thracians, Pelasgians and the Paeonians (the Paeonians are only one of the two bands that had participated in the Trojan War). Remarkably, these people are not remembered in the second branch of the wanderers settled down in Aram country. The second branch of these wandering people arrived in the ancient country of Aram and Cilicia Campestris. These were the Mycanaeans, comprising mainly the Cretans, and the second band of the Paeonians. The Mycanaeans, except for a small number settling in and around Adana, continued their wanderings to the gates of Egypt, where their advance was checked, forcing them to settle on the shores of Palestine.[18]
The Paeonians, judging from the inscriptions of Carchemish and Marash, settled in the ancient country of Aram, neighbouring the Aramaeans to the south. All these wanderings and settlements took place in the 12th century BC. It is known that new Paeonian (Hay) migrants were arriving all the time in waves, some settling in the centres where there existed large numbers of Hays, and some dispersing in the wide country of eastern Anatolia. Our source for this knowledge is the hieroglyphic inscription (Car.A1a) of Suhis I (early 10th century BC) king of Carchemish.[19] Beginning with the 10th century BC we see the Hay kingdoms established in Marash (Larazamasa I) and Carchemish (Suhis I). After the 10th century the known new migrations from the Balkans, ignoring the miner groups, are the following:
Very early in the 10th century BC the Proto-Armenians established their first two kingdoms in Carchemish and Marash (country of Gugum). With the arrival of new waves of migrants we see new kingdoms established in the 9th century BC in Melid (Malatya), Tabal and Commagene, and in the course of the 8th century BC we note multiple kingdoms to the west of Tabal, north-west of Cilicia, etc.
Below is a list of the various kingdoms, the branches of the Proto-Armenians, with dates (if known). The kings in block letters are those who have left for posterity hieroglyphic inscriptions. There are some kings the Assyrians have recorded with their demotic names; these Assyrian versions are shown after a dash, and the ones recorded in the History of the Armenians by Moses Khorenats’i of the second half of the 5th century, names that have been recomposed in classical Armenian for the understanding of the people of that period, follow the ancient names after an oblique.[29]
While in the country of Aram, the Proto-Armenians fought three decisive wars. Of these wars, the first and the second were fought simultaneously in the north (Tabal) by Wasusaramimasa against Bar-ga’ya of KTK[30] and the south (Carchemish) by Kamana against Mati’ilu of Arpat.[31] The third war against Assyria was fought in Commagene by Eshpai (Hayk) of Zapkaka (the later Kiaka), when the Assyrian king, Sargon II, was killed.[32] It is remarkable that all the three of these wars are mentioned in parabolic language in the 'History of the Armenians' by Moves Khorenats’i, written during the second half of the 5th century.
The Proto-Armenians having settled in the country of Aram (south-east Anatolia) were lucky to find a hieroglyphic script, a legacy from the Hittites, already in use particularly in Carchemish. They soon developed it with new signs adapting to their language, which the kings and the wealthy city-lords used for their inscriptions.[33]
In the year 591 BC the Median king Cyaxares attacked Lydia in western Anatolia. In order to be absolutely certain that there was no danger to his army from behind, he placed a regiment of Median soldiers under the leadership of Niwk’ar Madyes, the son of Bartatua (Herodotus’ Protothyes), who had helped him with his Scythian hordes in the destruction of the Assyrian capital Nineveh. It appears the intention of Cyaxares was to subdue Urartu and remove any threat to his campaign.
Madyes with his hordes of Scythians combined with the small army of the Medians succeeded to overrun most of Urartu and devastated the main cities, which has been confirmed by various archaeological investigations, such as the destruction of Armavir (Argishtikhinili), Bastam (Rusa-patari), Kef Kalesi, Karmir Blur (Teishebaini), Chavushtepe (Sardurikhinili), Toprak Kale (Rusakhinili), etc. It is remarkable that the city name Armavir, which the Proto-Armenians adopted as their capital for the next 400 years, means ‘Part of It Ruined’.
It is conjectured that the surviving Urartian aristocracy approached their Proto-Armenian neighbours to the west for help. The ex-royal ‘Houses’ of the Hays were still the heads of each community by the choice of the people of each region. The Hays never fought with Urartu and never impinged on their lands, not even the later migrations from both the Balkans and Aram. The Hays and the Urartians had an agreement whereby the country of Urartu would be shared between them, which we see in the dispersion of the Proto-Armenian ex-royal ‘Houses’ in the periphery of the country, such as: Gełark’unik’ in the north-east, Sisakeans in the east (this House was responsible in naming the present Lake Sevan after the lake they had left behind in the Balkans as Lychnidus), the Katmeans in the south, the Angeł Tun in the south-west and the Shahunik’ in the west (according to Khorenats’i this ‘House’ was responsible for armenicising the river name Araxes to Eraskh).[34] The north was not covered in the early days, but soon a branch of the Shahunik’, known as Gusharids took control of it, thus encircling the whole country. The three most important ‘Houses’ were centrally placed north of Lake Van; the Bznunik’ north-west of the lake, Khorkhorunik to the north (they were armenicised Hurrians of Carchemish country) and the Manavazeans (the leaders of the Hay forces) to the north, bordering both the Bznunik’ and the Khorkhorunik’.
A second agreement under the code name of Ostan (Ost = branch + an = collective suffix = Branches of the Hays) was achieved between the Hay ex-royal Houses,[35] whereby under the leadership of Haykak Manavazean they would attack the Medo-Schythian army. It is also thought that the remnants of the Urartian army joined the Proto-Armenian forces coming from the west. The dispersion of the Hay ex-royal Houses proves these events, which arrangement was disastrous for the country, since the spreading out of these ‘Houses’ became their weakness and Azhi-Dahaka (Azhdahak), the Median king, easily subdued them conquering the whole highland, and appointed as satrap a certain Eruand Sakavakeats’ (an Iranian).[36] The only conducive period for the Hays’ battle and entry into Urartu appears to have been c.588, while Cyaxares with his full force was in the west, and a disintegrating Urartu was on fire. The History of Armenians mentions that Madyes and his forces had conquered the half of the country and were running havoc for two years, which deducted from 591 BC, the start of the war with the Lydians, appears to be the only plausible period of 588 BC. For the next 6 to 700 years Urartu remained an independent country where the Armenians could not sojourn,[37] which is also one of the reasons the Armenian writers of the 5th century knew nothing relating to Urartu, same as the world did not know until the discovery of the various cuneiform texts. It was only at the time of the Arsacid Vałarshak I (AD 117-144) that Armenia went through a reform of administration, when the Urartians, too, were granted dukedoms and important positions in the Court.
This last battle with the Medians and the spread of the Proto-Armenians in the highlands is recorded in the History of the Armenians (Book I.12-13), but not the details of an agreement with Urartu and the Ostan agreement between the Hay ex-royal Houses. Also, Khorenats’i erroneously makes Aram (Aram country since he does not know the name of the leader) the leader of the Proto-Armenian forces, but he is the only person who mentions Niwkar Madyes and his end, and for the past 1,500 years the prehistory he wrote is the only one which is on most levels a true history of the Armenians,[38] albeit with obvious errors and without a reliable chronology.
After the ancient Urartian highland was named Armenia in the second half of the 6th century BC, there were the following migrations from the Balkans and the settlement places of these new people within or bordering Armenia:
2. At the same time as the Odomantians the Syriopaeonians arrived and settle in Lesser Armenia (later Cappadocea) and became known as White Syrians 3. Between the passage of Xenophon and Alexander the Great the population of the city of Gordyina in the Balkans arrived and settled to the south and the large district became known as Gordyene. 4. Perhaps it was towards the end of 4th century BC when the people of Europos arrived and settled in Carchemish, which started to be called Europos. 5. It may well be that at the same time as the people of Europos the population of Amydon arrived and settled in the city of Bit-Zamani, which became known as Amida. 6. Towards the end of the 3rd century BC the population of Bylazora arrived and settled to the south of Mount Ararat and built the new city of Bayazed. 7. The first half of the 2nd century BC saw the Migdonians arrive in the south of Armenia and settled around Nisibis (Mtsbin) and the large district became known as Mygdonia; but the people spread from the Euphrates in the west up to Atropatene. 8. At the same time as the Mygdonians the Agrianes of north Paeonia arrived in Anatolia, but they settled west of Sebastia (Megalopolis) and named their city Agriane. 9. At the same time as the Mygdonians the population of Astibus arrived and built for themselves the holy place of Ashtishad and named the district Taron after their royalty of Derrones (their god of healing was also known as Tarron).[39]