Armenian Rock Art

Digest N4. ArcaLer-Hayknet, 2011

Кто мы? Том 2. От Тянь-Вана до Ивана. Попов Б.И. 2009г.

Параллели в древнерусской и древнеармянской мифологиях. Тюняев А.А. 2009г.

Верования древних армян, как и всех праиндоевропейцев, связаны с множествами культов. «Основными культами были: культ предков, культ небесных тел (культ Солнца, культ Луны, Культ Неба), поклонение львам, орлам и быкам. Но основным культом, конечно, было поклонение богам армянского пантеона богов. Верховным богом был общий индоевропейский бог Ар (как начало начал), затем Ванатур» [Ваганян, инт]. Поясним: армянский Ар – это древнерусский Ра поклонения животным и т.п. – это типичные рассуждения чужеземцев, несведущих в русской мифологии.
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Global Changes of Environment and Great Migration of People from Asia Minor and the Armenian Highland at the end of the Quaternary Period

...Würmglaciations transformed essentially environment in the whole world, which, in part, changed radically the food sources of human beings. People’s information had not been adequate to a new formed situation; meanwhile not many were given a chance to survive rapid changes of factors and occurrence of unprecedented powers. From 200 thousand years until WürmIII, i.e. 25 thousand years ago there were biotopes with favorable climate and rich biocenosis, which had not almost changed during millennia in Europe and the basin of the Mediterranean Sea. 25 thousand years ago started and continued three thousand years WürmIII glaciationwhich changed as flora, as well as fauna resulting in extreme decrease of the chances of human beings’existence. 12,500-10,500 years ago the glaciations and accompanying it drought had much more heavy consequences on the population of the Armenian Highland, Mesopotamia and the Near East.
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The Rock Art of the Mt. Aragats System. Khechoyan A.

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Quantitative Approach to the Diffusion of Obsidian
in the Ancient Northern Near East. Christine Chataigner, Olivier Barge.

Tracing the transport of obsidian in the ancient Near East has played an important role in identifying prehistoric trade networks. The quantitative aspect of these exchanges has until now been rarely studied, whether the weight of material transported, its correlation with the means of transport (carried by humans, by pack or draught animals, by boat), the number of hours or days necessary between the source and the archaeological sites. Obsidian sources located in the northern Near East (Eastern Anatolia, Transcaucasia) were extensively exploited between the 7th–3rd mill. BC. The GIS modelling and quantification of the provision of obsidian in this mountainous region have revealed the predominance of a direct mode of acquisition, based partly on transhumance. The ethnographic data and the accounts of travellers in past centuries contribute precious information, which clarifies and supports the results of the modelling achieved using the GIS.
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Armenian Architecture by Sirarpie Der Nersessian
This lecture appears as chapter III of Der Nersessian's Armenia and the Byzantine Empire (Cambridge, MA., 1945), pp. 55-83.

The monuments of Armenia have been known to the western world for barely a century and French and English travellers of the nineteenth century were among the first to call attention to them. In his Voyage autour du Caucase, chez les Tcherkesses et les Abkhases, en Colchide, en Géorgie, en Arménie et en Crimée, published between the years 1839 and 1843, Dubois de Montpéreux drew and described several Armenian churches, among others the cathedral of Etchmiadzin, and he considered the connections between the art of Armenia and that of her neighbors. Three works, which appeared simultaneously in 1842, also contained descriptions of Armenian monuments: Travels and Researches in Asia Minor, Chaldea and Armenia by W. F. Ainsworth; Researches in Asia Minor, Pontus and Armenia by W. J. Hamilton; and Description de l'Arménie de la Perse et de la Mesopotamie by Charles Texier. Texier had been particularly impressed by the cathedral of Ani, where he was surprised to find pointed arches being used at a time when the original style had not yet made its appearance in Europe. A few years later, the well-known orientalist, Brosset, made an extensive journey in Georgia and Armenia and recorded the results of his investigations in his Rapports sur un voyage archéologique dans la Géorgie et dans l'Arménie exécuté en 1847-48. In 1860 he published a study on the Bagratid capital of Armenia, Les Ruines d'Ani, the first work to be exclusively devoted to Armenian architecture. To this group of early works belongs Grimm's Monuments d'architecture en Géorgie et en Arménie, published in 1864, and to the list of travel books should be added the two-volume publication [56] of H. F. B. Lynch, Armenia, Travels and Studies (London, 1901), which contains interesting descriptions and photographs of a number of ancient monuments.
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Armenian Origins: An Overview of Ancient and Modern Sources and Theories. Thomas J. Samuelian.

The Armenians are an ancient people who live in an ancient land. Their home lies in the highlands surrounding the biblical mountains of Ararat, upon which tradition tells us Noah’s ark came to rest after the flood. (Gen. 8:4). In those highlands, the Armenian state has struggled to exist for more than 3000 years, most recently regaining independence in September 1991 upon the fall of the Soviet Union. Armenia’s more than 2780-year-old capital, Yerevan, derives its name from the fortress of Erebuni, founded on that site in 782 BC. On Yerevan’s streets, the people speak a distinctive Indo-European language upon which their ancestors put the stamp of their identity 5000 or more years ago.
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The Ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian World-Systems. Christopher Chase-Dunn, Daniel Pasciuti, Alexis Alvarez, Thomas D. Hall.

This paper presents an overview of the development of complex and hierarchical societies in ancient Southwestern Asia from a comparative world-systems perspective, and presents an analysis of the timing of urban and empire growth/decline cycles in Mesopotamia and Egypt to test the hypotheses that these two regions may have experienced waves of development synchronously. We also discuss how climate change may have influenced the patterns of development.  In a nutshell our argument is that there have been systemic relations among different peoples since at least the first human settlements by the Natufians some twelve thousand years ago (Chase-Dunn and Hall 1997). The developmental logic of these intersocietal systems have changed over time as new techniques of power and institutions have emerged but there are also broad continuities and similar patterns over millennia as world-systems became larger.  This paper utilizes the conceptual apparatus of the comparative world-systems perspective to examine the patterns of development in prehistoric and ancient Western Asia. Thus we speak of strong core polities and weaker and dependent peripheral societies, as well as societies in the middle, which we call semiperipheral. And we bound systems by using interaction networks in which important, two-way and regular interaction links peoples with different cultures. This network approach to bounding world-system is explicated in Chase-Dunn and Jorgenson (2003).
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Septebmer 30, 2011, ArcaLer-Hayknet