Ancient Armenian civilization-Urartu/Ararat/Armenian Kingdom

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Jacquetta Hawkes, "The First Great Civilizations," London, 1967 "Yet the Hurrians did not disappear from history. Away to the North in their Armenian homeland, they entrenched themselves and build up the kingdom of Urartu." M. Chahin, "The Kingdom of Armenia," London, 2001 "The new kingdom of Urartu, which proved to be the stronghold of the Hurrian race." Greater Armenia lies in the highlands surrounding Mount Ararat, the highest peak of the region. In the Bronze Age, several states flourished in the area of Greater Armenia, including the Hittite Empire (at the height of its power), Mitanni (South-Western historical Armenia), and Hayasa-Azzi (1600-1200 BC). Soon after the Hayasa-Azzi were the Nairi (1400-1000 BC) and the Kingdom of Urartu (1000-600 BC), who successively established their sovereignty over the Armenian Highland. Each of the aforementioned nations and tribes participated in the ethnogenesis of the Armenian people. I. Geography. 'araraT (Sumerian Ar, "region," plus ar "high," plus Tu, "mountain," plus "high mountainous region"): in Assyrian, UrTu, UrarTu, UrasTu: in AEgyp, Ermenen (= "Region of the Minni") Wiener, Origin of the Pentateuch, Armina, Armaniyqa (Armenia): in Hecataeus of Miletus, circa 520 BC, the people are Armenioi (Gen 8:4; 2 Ki 19:37; Isa 37:38; Jer 51:27). Throughout the Bible, this is a country, not a mountain. Armenia Major was bounded on the North by the River Cyrus (Kour), Iberia, Colchis, and the Moschici Mts.; on the West by Asia Minor and the Euphrates; on the South by Mesopotamia and Assyria; on the East by the Caspian and Media. (Armenia Minor lay between the Euphrates and the Halys.) Ararat was originally the name of the central district. Most of Armenia is between 8,000 and 3,000 feet above sea-level, and slopes toward Euphrates, Cyrus, and the Gaspian. Mt. Massis (generally called Greater Ararat) is 16,969 ft. and Lesser Ararat, 12,840 ft. Both are of igneous origin, as is Aragds (A`la Goz), 13,436 ft. Sulphur springs and earthquakes still attest volcanic activity. The largest rivers are the Euphrates, Tigris and Araxes. The latter, swift and famed for violent floods, joins the Cyrus, which falls into the Caspian. The lakes Van, Urmi and Sevan are veritable inland seas. The many mountain chains, impassable torrents and large streams divide the country into districts far less accessible from one another than from foreign lands. Hence, invasions are easy and national union difficult. This has sadly affected the history of Armenia. Xenophon (Anab. iv.5) describes the people as living in houses partly underground, such as are still found. Each village was ruled by its chief according to ancient customary laws. He well describes the severity of the winters. In summer the climate in some places is like that of Italy or Spain. Much of Armenia is extremely fertile, producing large herds of horses and cattle, abundant crops of cereals, olives and fruit. It is rich in minerals, and is probably the home of the rose and the vine. http://www.bible-history.com/isbe/A/ARMENIA/ The Sumerians, an ancient peoples and one of the first civilizations in the world called Ararat, Arrata. In their great epic poems of Gilgamesh and Arrata, they tell of the land of their ancestors, the Arratans in the Highlands of Armenia. The Sumerians also in the epic poems describe the Great Flood and the rebirth of life after the terrible deluge that fell from the Highlands of Armenia unto the lands of Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent. The Sumerians had a very close connection with the ancestral Land of Ararat and considered it as their ancestral homeland. Many historians and archaeologists are convinced that the Sumerians initially lived in Northern Mesopotamia and Armenian Highland. The epic of Gilgamesh: the Babylonian epic poem and other texts in Akkadian by Andrew George