This history of Ancient Armenia covers a brief breakdown of the historical timeline of the existence of the nation. As well as a brief discussion regarding the Armenian people, the Armenian language, and the entire Armenian regions of Eurasia.

The geographical area known as Armenia was once located between Eastern Anatolia which is Modern day Turkey throughout the Armenian highlands. This location surrounds the Biblical mountains of Ararat.

Armenia existed at the time of Babylonia and Assyria. Armenia was a kingdom that the Persians and the Romans had to consider when making decisions regarding land ownership and control.

Armenia’s present-day capital was founded earlier than Rome, Italy.

Hayk the Progenitor

The endonym of the Armenians is hay, and the old Armenian name for the country is Hayk  which also means “Armenians” in classical Armenian, later Hayastan. 

Armenians traditionally associate this name with the legendary progenitor of the Armenian people, Hayk.

The names Armenia and Armenian are exonyms, first attested in the Behistun Inscription of Darius the Great.

The Behistun Inscription is text carved 330 feet (100 meters) up a cliff in Kermanshah Province, which is now Western Iran. The work tells the story of the victory of the Persian king Darius I (the Great, r. 522-486 BCE) over his rebellious governors when he took the throne of the Achaemenid Empire.

The early Armenian historian Movses Khorenatsi derived the name Armenia from Aramaneak, the eldest son of the legendary Hayk. Various theories exist about the origin of the endonym and exonyms of Armenia and Armenians.

The Bronze Age

Several nation states flourished under the Armenian Terroritory, including the Hittites, Mitanni, and Hayasa-Azzi (1600–1200 BC).

Soon after these groups gained prominence, the Nairi tribal confederation (1400–1000 BC) was created and the Kingdom of Urartu (1000–600 BC) was established.

Each of these various tribes participated in the creation of the Armenian people.

Yerevan, the modern capital of Armenia, dates back to the 8th century BC, with the founding of the fortress of Erebuni in 782 BC by King Argishti I at the western extreme of the Ararat plain. 

Erebuni has been described to be designed as a great administrative and religious centre, a fully royal capital.

The Iron Age

The Iron Age kingdom of Urartu was replaced by the Orontid dynasty. This dynasty ruled Armenia first as Persian Governors known as “Satraps” under Achaemenid Persian rule and later as independent kings. 

Following Persian and subsequent Macedonian rule, the Kingdom of Greater Armenia was established in 190 BC by Artaxias I, founder of the Artaxiad dynasty.

The Kingdom of Armenia rose to the peak of its influence in the 1st century BC under Tigranes the Great before falling under Roman suzerainty.

Armenia after A.D.

In the 1st century AD, a branch of the ruling Arsacid dynasty of the Parthian Empire established itself on the throne of Armenia.

In the early 4th century, Arsacid Armenia became the first state to accept Christianity as its state religion.

The Armenians later fell under Byzantine, Sassanid Persian, and Islamic hegemony, but reinstated their independence with the Bagratid kingdom of Armenia in the 9th century.

After the fall of the Armenian kingdom in 1045, and the subsequent Seljuk conquest of Armenia in 1064, Ancient Armenia began to be dismantled but the Turkic peoples.

Persecution of Armenians

The Seljuks, the ancestors of today’s Turks and the Azerbaijani, arrived in the South Caucasus and Asia Minor less than a thousand years ago.

As a result of systematic invasions by the Seljuks, Armenians were forced to establish a new kingdom in Cilicia, which existed until its destruction in 1375.

In the early 16th century, much of Armenia came under Islamic Safavid Persian rule.

However, over the centuries Western Armenia which also included Eastern Anatolia fell under Ottoman rule. While Eastern Armenia remained under Persian rule.

By the 19th century, Eastern Armenia was conquered by Russia and Greater Armenia was divided between the Ottoman and Russian empires.

Armenian Genocide

The Seljuks and their descendants including the Turks have indulged in systematic ethnic cleansing for a thousand years culminating in the genocide of all Christians in the entire region during the 1915 Ottoman War.

As a result in the early 20th century, the Ottoman government subjected Armenians to a nation wide genocide in which up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed and many more were dispersed throughout the world via Syria and Lebanon.

In 1918, an independent Republic of Armenia was established in Eastern Armenia in the wake of the collapse of the Russian Empire.

This republic fell under Soviet rule in 1920, and Armenia became a republic within the Soviet Union after its founding.

In 1991, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the modern-day independent Republic of Armenia was established.

Azerbaijan and Armenia

The term “Azerbaijan” refers only to a province in Persia. Today the country known as Azerbaijan under that name, never existed a hundred years ago.

The country was artificially created by the Soviet regime. It incorporates territories of historical Armenia including the Karabakh and Nakhichevan regions. Areas which are heavily populated by a large number of Armenians.

At the time, the state of Azerbaijan managed to depopulate large parts of the Armenian population such as Nakhichevan during the last 70 years of Soviet rule.

The Azerbaijani ethnonym never existed a hundred years ago. It is creation of the Soviet Regime and labeled on a mixed muslim population who otherwise would call themselves Tatars, Talysh, Kurds, Tats, Avars, Lezgins.

Today, Armenians in all parts of the former Soviet Union are subject to persecution with exception to what is now The Republic of Armenia.

The landlocked mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh which is the subject of a long-standing territorial dispute between Azerbaijan and its ethnic Armenian majority shows just how much of Armenia has been lost of the centuries.