Many experts, including historians, archeologists, ethnographers and
armeniologists, have discussed the connection Urartu – Armenia for
a long time. Currently, the joint study of the history of Urartu and the
history of ancient Armenia is considered logical and appropriate, for they
represent successive phases of the social, ethnical and cultural development
of the region.
The Behistun inscription has perpetuated the equation Urartu-Armenia for
the posterity. At the beginning of the reign of Dario the Great (521 – 486
before this Era) a series of insurrections against the Persian could occur
across the Aquemenida empire. Dario ordered to engrave the cited trilingual
inscription. Armenia appears there mentioned as Armina or Armniya (Persian),
Urashtu (Babylonian) and Harminu (Elamite). We can see here that, 70 years
after their fall, the Babylonian continued to call them the same way, while
the elamite, farther to Armenia than the Babylonian, called them Harminu.
This inevitably leads us to conclude that Urartu and Armenia are synonyms.
Each people just named the armenian with a particular name.
Besides, the anthropological and cranium studies of Hurrians and Urartians
on one side, and Urartians on the other side, show that the armenian have
inherited from the Hurrians and the Urartians their basic anthropological
characteristics.
The cultural continuity between Urartu and Armenia has been established
in many fields: Urbanism, Architecture, Construction Techniques, Pottery
and Metallurgy. All basic elements of the ornamental subjects of the armenian
manuscripts are classically developed in the called Urartian types. Not
to mention the multiples objects and monuments which Urartian or armenian
lineage has not been discovered yet.
Based on this, and taking into account the most recent investigations in
different fields, we conclude that the unity Urartu-Armenia, far from being
a theory, it has became today in a fundamental link of the ancient armenian
and human history, link which finally could be unearth. |