Could Armenians have been in Armi/Armani

tyuiopman

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Hi, long-time lurker but this is my first post on Eupedia. I hope that it is okay for me to post in this forum (I couldn't create a new thread in Anthropology & Ethnography, but I looked at some of the posts in this forum and it seemed like it could be appropriate for me to post here instead).

I've been reading a lot about Armenian and Near Eastern/eastern Mediterranean history lately. It seem to me that there is a growing consensus (or at least a significant minority) of scholars who are rejecting the Balkan origin of Armenians (i.e Armenians descend from Phrygians or a related tribe from the Balkans/Thrace/Macedonia) and instead argue that Armenians have been present in modern Armenia and Turkey since at the latest 1500 BCE. I'm referring to research by scholars like Eric P. Hamp, Robert I. Kim, and of course Thomas Gamkrelidze and Vyacheslav V. Ivanov, among others. According to Hamp, the proto-Armenians and proto-Greeks split off from one another in Georgia. Armen Petrosyan and Hrach Martirosyan have suggested that the proto-Armenians were the Etuini of northern Armenia, who were mentioned in Urartian texts. It also seems that there is growing evidence (or at least speculation) that the MBA Trialeti-Vanadzor culture of southern Georgia/northern Armenia/NE Turkey and whoever built the Nerkin Naver and Verin Naver grave complexes just outside of Yerevan were Indo-Europeans. So this seems to shift the locus of the earliest Armenians from the west to the near-north.

However, I was recently reading a paper by Archi and research by Kroonen and Damgaard, where they argues that the EBA city-state of Armi/Arman/Armani (Armanum?) had an Indo-European-speaking population, which was contemporaneous with Yamnaya culture. I had read before that Armi was believed to be the earliest recorded Indo-European name, but according to this research, Armian personal names, recorded by neighbors, were of Indo-European origins...potentially some form of early Hittites or maybe a pre-split Anatolian Indo-European language. Some have placed this city in Syria, but Archi argues that it was located near modern Samsat, Turkey--a city that was, up until the last century, populated by Armenians. Obviously the name Armi and its alternate forms sounds very much like Armenia. Also, one of the recorded Armian Indo-European personal names is Arra-ti. Ar/Ara has significance in ancient, pre-Christian Armenian religion as a sun-god (it's often believed that the name "Armenia" derives from this). -Ti meant "god" in Proto-Armenian (compare with dios, diety, etc).

Interestingly, the city of Armi was flourishing around the same time that the legendary Armenian hero, Aram, was supposed to have had some battle.

According to David Reich, the pre-Proto Indo-Europeans (Indo-Hittites) were partially from the Armenia region and the modern population most similar to them are contemporary Armenians.

I am aware that Steppe genes appear in Middle and Late Bronze Age Armenian DNA (but isn't present in EBA or modern Armenians, at least in a significant percentage). Following the Steppe theory, it would make sense that these people were a Yamnaya-derived population who brought their Indo-European, Proto-Armenian language to Armenia around 4000 years ago. But what if these people weren't Armenians but Scythians, Cimmerians, Phrygians, or another Indo-European group? What if Armenians spoke a post-Pre Proto Indo-European language that broke off and developed in situ as the (Anatolian-less) Proto-Indo Europeans moved north to Ukraine and Anatolians moved west? This could account for A) possible Armenian etymologies for, or at least relationships with, Armani/Arman and Arra-ti B) lack of Steppe ancestry in modern Armenians (where did the Steppe people who introduced these genes and not mix in with native populations go?) C) this could possibly explain the Hittite sun-goddess cult center Arinna (again, Ar being associated with solar deities), the Hattian/Hittite god Estan/Istanu and Armenian "Astu" (again, star/sun--this seems to be an Indo-European root, which means it was borrowed into Hattian and not borrowed from Hattian) d) this could also explain the difficulty in placing Armenian--is it closest to Greek? Ancient Macedonian? Indo-Iranian? Balto-Slavic? Celtic? D) it could also account for the early contact between proto-Indo-European and proto-Kartvelian. Kartvelians languages are believed to come from modern Turkey, not modern Georgia, which would suggest that contact was made prior to reaching the Pontic Steppes E) Also, signs of long contact between Armenian and Kartvelian languages.

Is this possible? Is there any reason to think that Armenian actually is Steppe-derived and didn't develop in situ? (I know that what I'm suggesting is basically the Armenian theory, but mixed with the Indo-Hittite theory). Is there a reason that Armani is considered to be related to Anatolian languages and not Armenian?
 
*Sorry, just to clarify. Aram was supposed to be around the Malatya area, not too far from Samsat. What I meant to write was that the Armenian patriarch (Aram's father), Hayk, was supposed to have formed the Armenian nation in 2492 BCE. The Armi records are from the 25th-24th centuries BCE.
 
IMO the Armenians are a blend of post-Yamna herders with local populations, probably post Kura-Araxes.
I don't think Armenians existed in EBA.
4,2 ka there was a climate change, big parts of the Pontic steppe became deserted.
The Wang paper shows many post-Yamna tribes survived on the northern slopes of the Caucasus.
Later they must have trickled down into Armenia, founding their own settlements there.
 
IMO the Armenians are a blend of post-Yamna herders with local populations, probably post Kura-Araxes.
I don't think Armenians existed in EBA.
4,2 ka there was a climate change, big parts of the Pontic steppe became deserted.
The Wang paper shows many post-Yamna tribes survived on the northern slopes of the Caucasus.
Later they must have trickled down into Armenia, founding their own settlements there.

All interesting, thanks! I'm not sure if I've read the Wang paper, I'll have to look for that.

But if they were a mix, how do you account for the lack of apparent Steppe ancestry in modern Armenians? Is it just diluted so much that it doesn't really show up? Was the language imposed upon the "native" people by a very small Steppe-derived minority?

And how do you explain the northern Mesopotamia connection--Armi/Arman/Armani and Subartu (which is also speculated to be an Indo-European name, if not Armenian, Anatolian--I think I read that it has something to do with the sun-god Shivini/Suini).
 
sorry, I don't have an extensive knowledge of Armenian history, but wasn't Urartu a multilingual and multi-ethnic confederation, where the Armenian language appeared only somewhere in the iron age, after a dynasty switch ?
I think speakers of Armenian language were part of the Urartian confederation since MBA or LBA, but only after this dynastic switch their language came on the foreground.
 
Yes. You're correct. But there's speculation that the Urartian and Armenian languages had long contact, prior to the formation of Urartu. It's generally accepted that Armenians were present in the region before Urartu--even Diakonoff, who had a more conservative view and ascribed to the Balkan theory, believed that Armenians arrived around 1200 (from the Balkans), during the Bronze Age Collapse.

The Armani thing throws me though. Either these have an Indo-Hittite etymology that both Anatolians and Armenians retained, Armenians borrowed these words from the Anatolians, or Anatolians borrowed them from Armenians.
 
A name can't prove anything, Armina was actually the Old Persian of this land, not what Armenians themselves called their land, the name of Parsi (Persia) is also similar to Parhasi (name of the same land of Persia in Akkadian sources from the 3rd millennium BC), but it never means Persians lived in this land before the 1st millennium BC.
 
Kind of. The name came from somewhere though. Armi/Arman/Armani was the name used for a kingdom (or kingdoms, it's unclear if they were a single place or a few places that were close to each other) in the region circa 2200 BCE...well before the Indo-Iranians are believed to have arrived in the Near East (or, for that matter, well before they split from one another).

Yes. Armenians call their land Hayastan, originally Hayk'. But ar names have pre-Persian etymologies--arev/areg (sun), Ara, Aram (Arama/Arame), Armen (Arman), arka (prince), Argisti, Aramili, Armenaqini, Ararat/Ayrarat, Arhi, Artin, etc. There is also Eriakh ...but that could have been potentially been a reference to the Scythians. The Assyrians also mention "Haria." So no, I don't really buy the whole "ar words come from Iranian" argument because many of these names pre-dated Iranian dominance in the region and ar words/names existed in Homeric Greek too. If Armenian is equally close to Iranian and Greek, and Greek and Indo-Iranian languages have ar names/words, it would suggest that Armenian had native ar names/words too.
 
As for your comment about Parhasi, maybe the name Persia (Parsa) and Parhasi are connected, and certain Iranian tribes took their names from Parhasi. I don't know the etymological theory or significance of Parsa in Iranian. The Hebrews called the land Paras, which sounds a lot like Parhasi to me, and as I'm sure you know, Hebrew and Akkadian are linguistically related.

I'd be willing to think that this was the same case in Armenian--that a non-Armenian/pre-Armenian name got applied to Armenians (i.e. that the land was called Armani since ancient antiquity and as Armenians moved in a version of the name became associated with them). But, as I said, ar has a meaning in Armenian and related Indo-European languages (Greek, Iranian, Indian, and apparently Anatolian too if Arinna is anything to go by).

Interestingly, Assyrians and Iranians (as you probably know) call Armenians "Armani", Arabs call Armenians "Arman," and Turks/Kurds call Armenians "Ermeni."

So you have an ancient kingdom in the region called Arman/Armani who were Indo-European and you have an Indo-European called Arman/Armani by their neighbors to this day and who use the name Arman/Armen as a personal name.
 
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Armenian get(river) matches perfectly as the etymology for both Getae and Sarmizegetusa.



The Getae tribes lived near the Black Sea coast and along the Lower Danube,while Sarmizegetusa was a mountain fortress surrounded by creeks.

Another interesting fact,both the Dacians and Thracians wore Phrygian caps.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_language
 
The IE root for water is actually gwed,thus Arm get(an older form),Eng wet.,just like in gwherm(hot),Irish geirid,,Eng warm.


This could be one of the differences between Dacian and Thracian,the isolated get vs the Pan-IE ut.


EDIT


See also the Gotland island and the Geats from Gotaland.


"The two largest islands"..." The two largest lakes"



https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Götaland
 
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I'm not sure what you're suggesting? Armenians and Phrygians moved westward into the Balkans and Danube region?
 
The IE root for water is actually gwed,thus Arm get(an older form),Eng wet.,just like in gwherm(hot),Irish geirid,,Eng warm.


This could be one of the differences between Dacian and Thracian,the isolated get vs the Pan-IE ut.


EDIT


See also the Gotland island and the Geats from Gotaland.


"The two largest islands"..." The two largest lakes"



https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Götaland

"Djerm" is warm in Armenian, which is also related to Greek "therm" and English "warm."
 
The Armenians are the Eastern Mushki,while the Phrygian ,Western ones,probably related to Moesi and Mysi.

Some of the Illyrian tribes had similar names in antiquity, see the interpretation of the Biblical Meschech.


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meshech



https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysia

I'm not entirely convinced that Armenians are Mushki, even the eastern ones who may have come from the Caucasus region. The -k in Mushk (Mushki) might be a Armenian plural marker (for example, Armenians are "Hayk" in old Armenian--literally just means "Hays/Hyes"). But Mush doesn't mean anything--although there is a city around Lake Van which is still called Mush. Petrosyan argued that Mushk could be a version of Missak, who was somehow connected to Aram--his brother or general, I don't remember. But the point is, unless there was a specific tribe of Armenians who were called Missak or something, and it got changed by the Assyrians or Greeks (I know that Mushki is an Assyrian name), Armenians don't use a variation of this name for themselves. Missak is a name though.

The name of the city of Mush is thought to come from the Mushki, but maybe it's the other way around? Or maybe its an exonym from another language we don't have a record of that meant something? I'm making this up but we don't know what the Mannaeans spoke...maybe "mush" meant "northerners" in their language or something (I just made this up to illustrate a point).

I should note that the Greeks differentiated between Armenians, Phrygians, and Mushki. I believe that the Assyrians differentiated between the Armenians and Mushki too.
 
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IMO the Armenians are a blend of post-Yamna herders with local populations, probably post Kura-Araxes.
I don't think Armenians existed in EBA.
4,2 ka there was a climate change, big parts of the Pontic steppe became deserted.
The Wang paper shows many post-Yamna tribes survived on the northern slopes of the Caucasus.
Later they must have trickled down into Armenia, founding their own settlements there.

I can't be sure the Armenian language and its "Armenian proper" ethnos already existed in the very first incursions of steppe ancestry and its admixture with the local populations, but in the Middle Bronze Age and Late Bronze Age there was already significant steppe-related ancestry of a mostly "southern" kind of Yamnaya (akin to Yamnaya_Bulgaria and Yamnaya_Caucasus) and to post-Yamnaya people (mainly Catacomb and Potapovka). That would fit well with the plausible hypothesis that Greek also came from Late Yamnaya or post-Yamnaya cultures like Catacomb and/or Poltavka-Potapovka, since Armenian seems closely related to Hellenic and, additionally, under strong Indo-Iranian influence, which makes sense as we all know that the late post-Yamnaya cultures were ultimately dramatically replaced by more CWC/R1a-shifted cultures like Srubnaya and Sintashta. If this is correct, and those MBA and LBA Armenian samples were already the Armenians, then many linguists of the past were wrong in assuming that the Armenians only appeared in West Asia after the Bronze Age Collapse. But what would they have been doing before that? Were they a weak ethnic group under Hurro-Urartian dominance, managing to climb the social/political ladder with the chaos of the LBA?

[1] "distance%=1.5584 / distance=0.015584" [1] "distance%=1.8623 / distance=0.018623" [1] "distance%=1.6767 / distance=0.016767"
ARM_MBA ARM_LBA ARM_Lchashen_MBA



Kura-Araxes_Kalavan 49.65 Maykop_Novosvobodnaya 27.55 Kura-Araxes_Kalavan 38.30
Yamnaya_Bulgaria 18.85 Armenia_ChL 24.00 Maykop 18.15
Yamnaya_Caucasus 14.10 Yamnaya_Karagash 13.25 RUS_Potapovka_MLBA 10.55
Seh_Gabi_ChL 8.90 Seh_Gabi_ChL 8.65 Levant_N 9.35
Levant_N 3.65 Hajji_Firuz_ChL 7.90 Sarazm_Eneolithic 8.85
Anatolia_EBA_Ovaoren 3.10 Yamnaya_Caucasus 6.75 Yamnaya_Ukraine 7.45
Maykop_Novosvobodnaya 1.75 Levant_N 5.65 Anatolia_EBA_Ovaoren 7.35
Catacomb 4.80
Greece_N 1.45
 
Kind of. The name came from somewhere though. Armi/Arman/Armani was the name used for a kingdom (or kingdoms, it's unclear if they were a single place or a few places that were close to each other) in the region circa 2200 BCE...well before the Indo-Iranians are believed to have arrived in the Near East (or, for that matter, well before they split from one another).

Yes. Armenians call their land Hayastan, originally Hayk'. But ar names have pre-Persian etymologies--arev/areg (sun), Ara, Aram (Arama/Arame), Armen (Arman), arka (prince), Argisti, Aramili, Armenaqini, Ararat/Ayrarat, Arhi, Artin, etc. There is also Eriakh ...but that could have been potentially been a reference to the Scythians. The Assyrians also mention "Haria." So no, I don't really buy the whole "ar words come from Iranian" argument because many of these names pre-dated Iranian dominance in the region and ar words/names existed in Homeric Greek too. If Armenian is equally close to Iranian and Greek, and Greek and Indo-Iranian languages have ar names/words, it would suggest that Armenian had native ar names/words too.

We don't need to assume that, because Armenians became known as Armenians (exonym, not their endonym), then the root of the word Armenia/Armenian must have also come from Proto-Armenian roots or even from more broadly IE ones. It might well be that the Armenians were simply named by some people after some land they had come from when they first had contacts with that people, and this foreign population passed the named Armenia on to other populations, just like it happened to the various names for Greece in European and Asian languages.
 
I can't be sure the Armenian language and its "Armenian proper" ethnos already existed in the very first incursions of steppe ancestry and its admixture with the local populations, but in the Middle Bronze Age and Late Bronze Age there was already significant steppe-related ancestry of a mostly "southern" kind of Yamnaya (akin to Yamnaya_Bulgaria and Yamnaya_Caucasus) and to post-Yamnaya people (mainly Catacomb and Potapovka). That would fit well with the plausible hypothesis that Greek also came from Late Yamnaya or post-Yamnaya cultures like Catacomb and/or Poltavka-Potapovka, since Armenian seems closely related to Hellenic and, additionally, under strong Indo-Iranian influence, which makes sense as we all know that the late post-Yamnaya cultures were ultimately dramatically replaced by more CWC/R1a-shifted cultures like Srubnaya and Sintashta. If this is correct, and those MBA and LBA Armenian samples were already the Armenians, then many linguists of the past were wrong in assuming that the Armenians only appeared in West Asia after the Bronze Age Collapse. But what would they have been doing before that? Were they a weak ethnic group under Hurro-Urartian dominance, managing to climb the social/political ladder with the chaos of the LBA?

[1] "distance%=1.5584 / distance=0.015584" [1] "distance%=1.8623 / distance=0.018623" [1] "distance%=1.6767 / distance=0.016767"
ARM_MBA ARM_LBA ARM_Lchashen_MBA
Kura-Araxes_Kalavan 49.65 Maykop_Novosvobodnaya 27.55 Kura-Araxes_Kalavan 38.30
Yamnaya_Bulgaria 18.85 Armenia_ChL 24.00 Maykop 18.15
Yamnaya_Caucasus 14.10 Yamnaya_Karagash 13.25 RUS_Potapovka_MLBA 10.55
Seh_Gabi_ChL 8.90 Seh_Gabi_ChL 8.65 Levant_N 9.35
Levant_N 3.65 Hajji_Firuz_ChL 7.90 Sarazm_Eneolithic 8.85
Anatolia_EBA_Ovaoren 3.10 Yamnaya_Caucasus 6.75 Yamnaya_Ukraine 7.45
Maykop_Novosvobodnaya 1.75 Levant_N 5.65 Anatolia_EBA_Ovaoren 7.35
Catacomb 4.80
Greece_N 1.45

Interesting. Yeah, I just find the lack of Steppe admixture (to my understanding) in modern Armenians interesting and also the Armani/Arra-Ti thing. Also, David Reich's research that suggests that Pre-Proto IEs came from Armenia and modern-Armenians (and I guess, Georgians) are a close analogy to that group, genetically.

Even with the lack of direct historical record, I think we can piece together a somewhat plausible history. Maybe the Trialeti-Vanadzor (circa 2000 BCE) people were the people that introduced the Armenian language to the region (i.e. the proto-Armenians)--I know that this has been discussed in a few threads on this board. They seem to have been Indo-European. They were originally from Georgia and northern Armenia, but seem to have spread as far as the modern city of Kars in Turkey, at least. Potentially, they might be the same people (or at least closely related) to those who constructed the grave complexes at Nerkin Naver and Verin Naver just outside of Yerevan (which started around 2000 BCE), which are believed to have been built by an Indo-European people. I think eventually these tribal groups would have consolidated into Hayasa-Azzi (1500 BCE-1300 BCE), who at various times were a vassal state to, and a thorn in the side of, the Hittites. We don't know what language they spoke, or if they were indeed connected to Armenian, but some of the names (recorded by Hittites, and I believe Assyrians) could potentially have been renderings of Armenian names (i.e. Hukkana/Hakkani could have been Hayk/Hayka/Hayik, the name of the deity Baltaik seems to have an Armenian diminutive suffix -ik, the deity Unag-Astas could have been connected to Armenian gods Angegh and Astuas, and city names Ura and Arhitta could be connected to Ara and Arkhi in Urartian/Hark' in Armenian). I think that Samuha is the root of the Georgian exonym for Armenians, Somkheti, although Diakonoff rejected this for some reason (makes more sense to me than "Mushki" being the root, and the early Kartvelians were thought to be along the Turkish Black Sea coast themselves). Hayasa fell somehow, or it may have continued on as the Diauni/Diahuni/Diasuni tribal confederation (1100 BCE-760 BCE) in the same region (apparently based on an Indo-European name, Daias--"of the gods"--perhaps a chief or king). Petrosyan connects Diahuni with Etuini/Etio, another tribal confederation located in northern Armenia during Urartian times. He claims Etio is a cuneiform rendering of "Hatiyo" (which Diakonoff claimed was the root-form of "Hayo", others have speculated "Haya").

Possibly some of the Hayasan tribes made up part of the Nairi confederacy (1200 BCE-900 BCE) (we know Hayasa reached Lake Van at least, which is where Nairi was focused). Eventually, I think, an Armenian (Arama/Aramu/Arame) consolidated power and formed a more cohesive kingdom, but his dynasty was quickly overthrown by the Urartians (860-590 BCE), a Hurrian-like people originally from northern Iraq (this is according to Zimansky, who claims that Musasir was the Urartian homeland and located in Iraqi Kurdistan, he also claims that Arame was from a separate dynasty than most of the Urartian kings). I'm not sure if the Urartians were one of the Nairi tribes or if they invaded during/after Arame's reign...but it's thought that Armenian and Urartian were in close contact before the establishment of Urartu as a distinct political entity, so this suggests to me the former theory. The Urartians established their own kingdom that lasted for a couple hundred years, which was partially made up of Armenians, especially in the north where Etuini was. The northern Armenian tribes would have been more resistant to Urartian control, which is evident in the beheaded bodies and evidence of burned cities in NE Turkey and Armenia from during the expansion under the Urartian king Argishti (who himself may have been Armenian, or at least Indo-European according to his name--Argus-ti? "Shining god"?).

I think what ended up happening was that the Armenians, noticing an opportunity and potentially recognizing cultural similarities, sided with invading Iranians, such as the Scythians and Medes, promising to help overthrow Urartu if they were given more autonomy under the Iranian rule. The Urartians were overthrown and the Armenian Orontid/Yervanduni dynasty, under Iranian oversight, established their rule in the 500s BCE.

I think that the Urumeans could fit in here somewhere too, but I'm not sure how.

I think this still seems to be the most plausible theory, but I don't know how to reconcile some of the west of Lake Van connections.
 

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