Juts a couple of question.
I have read many versions of Armenian origins where often Hitttites, Thraco-Phrygians, Hayasas and Urartu/Nairi are referred to as Armenians.
Before 520 BC there were no Armenians!
Even though most Armenian say Armenia history starts 4500 years ago and some others go even further back to 3000 BC.
The usual legend says that the Armenians were descendant of Togorn, son of Japheth. In reality, the Bible states that there was a Togarmah, son of Gomer, son of Japheth. If Togarmah equals the Togorm of much later Armenian legend, then in the eyes of the Hebrews, the Armenians were the descendants of the Cimmerians (Gomer). The Bible does not record any descendant of Togarmah. Much later Armenian legend attempts to fill in the blanks.
Today, this theory is championed by Gamkrelidze and Ivanov. The problem is that the earliest evidence of language in the region was Hurrian which is decidedely non-Indo European.
The Hayasa were neither Proto-Armenians or Hittites. The evidence of the names of their kings disproved this. There is no evidence that they formed the Nairi union which possessed the land south of lake Van. The Urarteans, which came out of the Nairi spoke a Hurrian-derived language. Hayk must have been a Hurrian.
Care must be taken when judging a people as "proto-" or otherwise. Some of the peoples mentioned surely became components of the later Armenians, however we can't call them 'Armenians' in its historic sense until most or all of the components come together, which did not occur until 'Armenia' or 'Armenians' are spoken of as a distinct land or people.
During the Urartian period, there were already place-names with the appelation 'Arma-'. More than likely, the Armenians were named for a place.
Hittite culture was influenced by Hurrian culture, not based on it. Hurrian kingdom is the Kingdom of Mitanni.
The Nairi were Hurrian-speaking!!! The Urarteans emerged from them, and their language was not even Indo-European
We are talking about two different times in history. The Assyrian inscriptions mentioning 'Urartu' (or its variants) date from between 1275 and 640 BC. Urartean inscriptions (c. 830-585 BC) refer to the land as either Nairi or Biainili. The Persian inscriptions mentioning 'Armenia' only begin by 520 BC. Therefore sometime between 585 and 520 BC, Hurrian-speaking Urartu became IE-speaking Armenia.
The fact that the Urarteans did not speak Armenian actually proves the opposite. Sorry, but Armenian came later.
There is no evidence to suggest that the Hayasa (by name) inhabited their land as known by the Hittites as far back as 3000 BC. The earliest known mention of Hayasa was from about 1400 BC, and did not survive the Hittite eclipse by about 1200 BC. There is no evidence to suggest that Hayasa inhabited the region of Lake Van. It is more accurate to say that where the Hayasa inhabited, became part of the later western portion of the Urartean Empire, but when the Urarteans arrived in the ancient region of Hayasa, it was known by other names.
There may have been a 'Thraco-Phrygian' presence in Hayasa as far back as about 1165 BC with the invasion of the proto-Phrygian? or proto-Armenian? Mushki, which also took over several Assyrian provinces further south. It may have been them, which took over the name Hayasa and made it their own.
Urarteans were not Armenians. The Hayasans were not originally Armenians, but their name seemingly was taken over by the proto-Armenians.
The Hayasans were not European.
Armenia is not in Europe. It was assumed that it was the Hittites which produced the first iron tools, c. 1400 BC.
Calling Urartu "the first Armenian Kingdom" is a serious misnomer. The Urarteans, once again, as stated several times already, did not speak Armenian, but a non-IE Hurrian language.
The Cimmerians were chased out of the Pontic steppe by the Scythians. After crossing the Caucasus they invaded Urartu where they defeated the Urarteans (714 BC), and then migrated west into northern Anatolia. By 705 they were ravaging Cilicia, which was enough for the Assyrian king Sargon to come to meet them in battle. However, in a night attack, they slew the Assyrian king. In about 696 they an end to the rule of Midas of Phrygia and the same fate befell Gyges, king of Lydia, in 652 BC, but it was the Assyrians which put an end to their military power in about 650 BC. The received narratives relate that they were absorbed by the Scythians, but nowhere is there evidence that the Scythians were present in central Anatolia. In either case the presence of Cimmerians in Urartu leds some credence to a relationship with Armenians. As was stated before, the first reference we have to 'Armenia' or 'Armenians' was the Behistun inscription of Darius I (c. 521 BC). The Cimmerians were present in Urartu by 714 BC.
We have evidence of Anatolian IE (Hittite, Luwian, etc.) languages existing at the same time as Hurrian. We also have the Indo-Aryan names of Mitannian kings who ruled over a powerful Hurrian empire.
The Hittites spoke a language which was not Armenian, and lived in a region which does not coincide with historic Armenia. Armenian doesn't even belong to the same branch of IE as Hittite. The Urarteans spoke a language which was not even IE. We are talking about different groups which were distinct in language and culture. Ethnicity is irrelevent.
Diakonov postulates that the Balkans was the original homeland of IE languages. The Balkans were in fact a center of IE languages as well as a staging area for the migration of various IE groups into the Aegean and Anatolia, but his theory falls to pieces when trying to explain the origins of Indo-Iranian speaking peoples, archaeologically, and his timeline falls far too outside the limit as to the most likely time when IE developed. I neither subscribe to Diakonov or Gamkrelidze/Ivanov regarding IE origins.Hayasa, Hittites, and 'Thraco-Phrygians' were contemporaneously distinct peoples. Each in themselves were not Armenians, but two of these groups, namely the Hayasa and the 'Thraco-Phrygians' were part of the synthesis which became the Armenians.
There is no evidence of Thraco-Phrygian influence amongst the Nairi. The Urarteans who were Nairi spoke a Hurrian language. The Assyrians used the terms Nairi and Urartu interchangeably to denote the same land. The Urartean kings styled themselves 'King of Nairi'. Sometimes the term Urartu was subsumed under the name of Nairi, sometimes it was superimposed on it. Study the translations of the Assyrian and Urartean inscriptions.Before Armenian, there was Urartean, a totally unrelated language, although it can be demonstrated that 'Armenian' borrowed terms from this extinct Hurrian language.
The Urarteans spoke Urartean, a non-Armenian language. It is more accurate in saying that Urartean populations became a component in the make-up of the later Armenian people, but they themselves were not Armenian.
The Hayasa weren't IE-speaking, until the 'Thraco-Phrygians' "assimilated" them. It would take another 500 years before some Urarteans were assimilated. The remnant, called Alarodians ("Urartians") by the Greeks, which inhabited southern Armenia, weren't assimilated until about the 1st century BC.
As I've written before, there is no evidence for IE in the earlier period. The evidence points to Hurrian as the earliest known language of the region. The evidence of the arrival of IE groups including the Hittites, Luwians, proto-Armenians, etc. shows cultural drift from the Balkans, to northwestern Anatolia, into western Anatolia (for the Luwians), to Cilicia, and ultimately into central Anatolia (for the Hittites). The kernal of the Armenians (perhaps the Mushki) can at least be traced to Phrygia, where "Mita of Mushku" of the Assyrian inscriptions was the same as king Midas of Phrygia, of Greek sources. The Hittites did not preserve the language of the Hayasas, period!!! All that remains are narratives of exchanges of letters, and the names of Hayasan kings which are not considered IE.
We don't have to prove that "everyone" in the Hittite Empire spoke Hittite. Prior to the rise of one unified Hittite kingdom, there were various kingdoms whose kings bore Hittite or Hittite-like names. Therefore we know that the Hittite language was widely used in the core area. The only other "native" language known from inscriptions 'Hattian' was named for a people which spoke a non-Indo-European language. The land was named after this non-Indo-European people, and so therefore, a non-Indo-European people were there before the arrival of the Hittites which took over their name.
The problem is that there are many 'assumptions' to Armenian ideas, but no proof. There is no evidence of a Hayasa migration to Urartu at such a remote period. Neither Urartian or Assyrian inscriptions record such a presence. The best that can be said, is that a 'Thraco-Phrygianized' Hayasa laid somewhere between Urartu and the old Hatti land. It was only later that toward the end of the Urartean kingdom, these Hay took possession of the land north of Lake Van, while south of the lake remained predominantly "Alarodian". The Armenians were but one group in the land called by the Persians Armina. Herodotus records that other groups included the Matienians, Saspires, and the Alarodians. The last of these possesses the name of the Urarteans.
We can find traces of Urartean, Hittite, Luwian, Iranian, and Aramaic within the Armenian language itself. As far as I've read, there are no anomalies pointing to yet another language. This only demonstrates that the proto-Armenians were present in western Anatolia (where they picked up Luwian words) and then in central Anatolia (where they picked up Hittite words), and then in the region between Khatti and Urartu (where they picked up Aramaic words), before entering the northern regions of the expanded Urartean kingdom (where they, of course, picked up Urartians words). During the Medo-Persian period, they picked up some Iranian.
Again, Armenians exist only 2500 years!
Edited by Teutonic Knight, 18 September 2003 - 02:45 PM.