There was a Bronze Age tribe of the Armens (Armans, Armani; Armenian: Արմեններ Armenner, Առամեններ Aṙamenner), either identical to or forming a subset of the Hayasa-Azzi.[11][12] In this case, Armenia would be an ethnonym rather than a toponym # ^ Elisabeth Bauer. Armenia: Past and Present (1981), p. 49 ............... ^ Anne Elizabeth Redgate, The Armenians, Wiley-Blackwell, 2000 ISBN 9780631220374, p. 24. The name Hayk' is from the earliest record identified with Armenians from Sumerian inscriptions around 2700 BC, in which the Armenians are referred to as the sons of Haya, after the regional god of the Armenian Highlands. ....... Luigi Villari FIRE AND SWORD IN THE CAUCASUS "The Land of Ararat" "We are now in the true Armenia, the original home of the Haik people. ... Hittite inscriptions deciphered in the 1920s by the Swiss scholar Emil Forrer testify to the existence of a mountain country, the HAYasa, lying around the Lake of Van/Armenian Highland. The suffix sa of Hayasa corresponds to the stan, derivative of Hayasatan (Armenia). Greeks knew about this country (Hayasa) and their writers wrote about Armenians or hayers. ... The Armenian people derive their self-designative name "Hay" from the Deity - HAY(A), whom they regarded as "the Creator of the Cosmos." According to several scholars the name HAY(A) comes from the primordial root name AY or AYA which goes back all the way to the Neolithic Era and the early veneration of the cult of the Mother Goddess that also gave her name to later (masculine) God HAY(A). The God HAYA-EA was also venerated throughout Mesopotamia. The earliest surviving inscriptions that mention HAY(A) - the "God of Wisdom" and the "God of Cosmic Waters" are found in the Sumerian inscriptions dated to ca. 2,800 BCE. The God EA-HAYA was also later venerated by the Akkadians who knew him under the name of Enki. The Eblaic (an ancient city in Syria) inscriptions dated to ca. 2,600 BCE also mention both a Deity and a people by the name of "HAY" who lived in the Armenian Highland. The name "Hay" was also used by the Hittites to refer to Armenia and the Armenian people. The Hittite inscriptions from around 1,500 BCE record the history of the kingdom of Hayasa (with the root word Hay and the Hittite ending - "asa," connoting a place) situated in Armenian Highland. The name Hay also lived on in the name of Hayk, the traditional patriach of the Armenian people, as recorded by a number of medieval historians. Hayk was regarded by the Armenian people as the divine offspring of the primordial God of Essence - HAY(A). "Father of Armenian history", an Armenian historian (5 th century) Movses Khorenatsi narrates the story of Japeth's grandson (through Torgom), Hayk and his descendents, the Hays (as Armenians call themselves). The oldest known ancestors of modern Armenians, the Hayasa-Azzi tribes, also known as Proto-Armenians, were indigenous to the Armenian Highland. These tribes formed the Nairi tribal union, which existed until late 13th century BC. The legendary forefather of Armenians, Hayk, famous for his battles with Babylonian ruler Bel was one of the Hayasa tribal leaders. Հայք Hayk' is the nominative plural in Classical Armenian of հայ (hay) and is also a popular Armenian name. The native Armenian name for the country is Hayk'. The name in the Middle Ages was extended to Hayastan,by addition of the Indo-European suffix -stan (land).

• published: 25 Jun 2011
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