User:Yerevantsi/sandbox/Ararat

Mount Ararat

• actual Armenian myths/legends, traditions: Artavazd chained, Trdat rocks, kajk, etc

• politics section?
• Mount Ararat Square (Buenos Aires)

sorted

"Ararat remains in travellers' thoughts as the foremost image ofthe country, and therefore of its people; a sort of perennial benchmark, local, unchanged, and unchangeable, a symbolic and mythical point of reference, the image of the deluge and rebirth, of life and death. The myth ofArarat, ofwater, land, and the regeneration of life, is syntonic with the religion that put down roots in Armenia so early. One can therefore suggest the hypothesis that the myth is linked with the present "new myth," the "new religion" on Ararat."

MX 1.15; this is a folk etymology, as the toponyms Ayrarat and Ararat are to be connected rather with the name Urartu (see Ch. 1).

https://archive.org/details/JamesRussellZoroastrianismInArmenia/page/n220/mode/1up?view=theater&q=ararat

Trdat stones

The Gregorid associations of Zvart‘nots‘ are furthered by the topographical relationship between the church and Mount Ararat in the distance. According to the conversion legend, King Trdat, still in porcine form, but filled with the superhuman zeal of his new faith, climbed the mountain to quarry stones for the construction of Armenian churches. 47

The Case for Ağrı Dağı/Masis as Biblical Mt. Ararat / Journal of the Adventist Theological Society, 2021 https://web.archive.org/web/20240111133239/https://www.atsjats.org/the-case-for-a%C4%9Fr%C4%B1-da%C4%9F%C4%B1/masis-as-biblical-mt.-ararat.pdf

Garibian 2021

Chapter 13 ‘On the Mountains of Ararat’: Noah’s Ark and the Sacred Topography of Armenia In: Apocryphal and Esoteric Sources in the Development of Christianity and Judaism Author: Nazénie Garibian https://brill.com/display/book/9789004445925/BP000014.xml

Noah Ark relic

File:2014_Prowincja_Armawir,_Wagharszapat,_Katedra_w_Eczmiadzynie,_Wnętrze,_Relikwiarz_zawierający_fragment_Arki_Noego.jpg

A fragment from the ark supposedly found on Ararat is on display at the museum of Etchmiadzin Cathedral, the center of the Armenian Church.

When St James of Nisibis had attempted to scale Mt Sararad in Gordyene in the fourth century, an angel of the Lord had prevented him from reaching the top, but gave him a relic of the ark of Noah. This tradition, preserved by Pʿawstos Buzand for the Armenians, had been transferred with the legend of the ark itself to Azat Masikʿ as the Armenians sought to adorn the mountain—already sanctified in pre-Christian belief—with added Biblical prestige, to strengthen the legitimacy and holiness of Vałaršapat-Ēǰmiacin, which stands in the shadow of the massive peak.

It is one of the three principal relics of the Armenian Church along with the Holy Spear and the Right Hand of Gregory the Illuminator.

The earliest written account of how this relic came to be in Armenian hands appears in the fifth century, in Pavstos Buzand's *History of the Armenians*. Buzand recounts that Jacob, Bishop of Mtsbin — a city in Mesopotamia known in history as Nisibis, and venerated in the Armenian Church under the title St. Hagop Hayrapet of Mtsbin — set out from his city with a profound and ardent desire to reach the mountains of Ararat, which lay within the borders of the Ayrarat province of the Armenian kingdom. The mountain is referred to in Buzand's text as "Sararad" rather than "Ararat," a discrepancy that puzzled scholars for a long time. Viennese Mekhitarist fathers, including A. Martikian and St. Malkhasyants, eventually demonstrated through careful paleographic analysis that the form "Sararad" arose from a scribal misreading of the continuous script of early Armenian manuscripts, in which the words "i lerins Araraday" (in the mountains of Ararat) were incorrectly parsed as "i lerin Sararaday."

Buzand describes Jacob as a man overflowing with divine grace, through whose hands miracles were performed. As he and his companions ascended the barren, rocky, waterless slopes of the mountain, they became utterly exhausted and parched with thirst. Jacob knelt upon the ground and prayed to God, and from the very spot where he laid his head a spring of water burst forth, which the people of the region continued to call "Jacob's Spring" in Buzand's own time. Pressing on with great effort toward the summit, Jacob was eventually overcome by exhaustion at a difficult point near the peak and fell asleep. An angel of the Lord appeared to him and called his name twice: "Jacob, Jacob." Jacob answered, "Here I am." The angel then told him that the Lord had received his prayers and fulfilled his request, and that what lay beneath his head was wood from the Ark, which the angel himself had brought. The angel added that Jacob should labor no further to see the Ark, for such was the Lord's will. Waking with great joy, Jacob rose and gave thanks to God, and he saw before him a plank of wood that appeared as though it had been cut with an axe and split from a great timber. He took this divinely granted gift and descended the mountain with his companions, and the entire city and surrounding region came out to meet him with extraordinary and incomparable rejoicing. The people regarded him as an apostle of Christ and a heavenly angel, surrounded him, kissed the traces of his laborious and fruitful feet, and received with gladness the gift he had brought. The text emphasizes that the relic was preserved among them and could still be seen as a wondrous sign in Buzand's day.

A point stressed in the article — and common to accounts of the True Cross and the Holy Spear as well — is that the relic was not separated from the Ark by any human hand or instrument, but was cut by divine power and delivered through an angel. This miraculous mode of acquisition was theologically significant and deliberately underscored in all subsequent literary treatments.

The reason for Jacob's journey is elaborated in later sources. During the spread of the Arian heresy, many in Mtsbin had come to doubt the historical truth of Noah's Ark — a denial that carried deeper doctrinal implications, since the Ark was understood typologically as prefiguring salvation through wood, and thus through the Cross. A hermit named Maruqe urged Jacob to obtain a piece of the Ark to refute the doubters. Grigor Narekatsi, writing in the tenth century in his panegyric to St. Jacob, alludes to this motivation in his characteristically dense and difficult style, describing the relic as "the granted fragment of the piece of our salvation" — obtained, as he puts it, to rebuke the faint-hearted and doubting. A more detailed prose narrative from the twelfth or thirteenth century, the *History of St. Jacob of Mtsbin*, recounts the same events with greater elaboration, specifying that God, wishing to spare Jacob the dangerous ascent to the ice-covered peak, had the angel place the fragment beneath the sleeping bishop's head. The story is further attested in Armenian liturgical poetry: the *Sharaknotz* (the Armenian hymnal) contains verses stating that Jacob "received from the angel the wood of the world's salvation," and a verse from the canonical hymns reads, "Having received a fragment of the saving matter of the flood-destroyer." A medieval treasury-hymn draws a direct parallel between Jacob ascending Ararat and Moses receiving the Law on Sinai, presenting Jacob as the greater of the two because the people came out to receive him with even greater jubilation than Israel welcomed Moses descending from Sinai. This parallel recurs in the liturgical tradition across several centuries.

1. 1. The Relic in Armenian Literature from the Fifth to the Nineteenth Century

Beyond Buzand, the relic receives a series of attestations in Armenian literature spanning fourteen centuries. The thirteenth-century historian and geographer Vardan Areveltsi is the first to specify where the relic was physically kept, noting in his *Ashkharhatsoyts* that both the Holy Spear and the plank of Noah's Ark were preserved at Ayrivank — the monastery known as Geghard, or Geghardavank — which he calls "the house of faith of the Armenian world, established by the Holy Illuminator." The *Haysmavurk* (the Armenian synaxarion, or collection of saints' lives) commemorates St. Jacob on December 15 and retells the story closely following Buzand, comparing Jacob's descent from Ararat with the joy of Moses coming down from Sinai.

1. 1. The Reliquary of 1698

In the late seventeenth century, both the Holy Spear and the relic of Noah's Ark were still housed at Geghardavank. The 1679 earthquake had damaged the reliquary of the Holy Spear, and Bishop David of Geghard — a member of the Proshyan (Khakhbakyan) family who served as abbot of the monastery — had a new one made in 1687. In 1698 he commissioned a second reliquary, this one for the Noah's Ark relic, executed by a goldsmith named Avet of Kanaker. The new reliquary was made following the model of the first, though it is considered artistically somewhat inferior to it.

The reliquary is constructed of gold-plated silver sheets 0.6 millimeters thick, measuring 51 by 26 by 6 centimeters, and has two hinged panels. On the outside of the left panel is depicted the angel holding the relic of the Ark, while the right panel shows St. Jacob of Mtsbin with his hands outstretched toward the angel. The upper arched portion of the reliquary bears a two-winged angel, and the lower corners on each side contain four-winged seraphim. The surface is covered with spiral decorative patterns. At the center of the opened reliquary is the relic itself, upon which a cross is mounted, inlaid with eight rubies and olivine stones. The relic is framed by a rectangular border of stylized trefoil ornamental motifs, and the remaining surface is filled with a fish-scale decorative pattern also found in Armenian manuscript illumination. Three enamel border strips frame the panels, worked in an intertwined rope-pattern motif, with areas filled in dark and light olive-colored enamel executed at medium temperature — considered one of the finest examples of Armenian enamel work. A jeweled cross with a crucifixion scene, with the sun and moon depicted as human faces in the upper corners, was at one time suspended by a chain from the side of the reliquary.

The dedicatory inscription on the reverse of the reliquary, dated 1698, records that David — who calls himself an unworthy abbot of the Proshyan family — had the reliquary made and adorned with varied ornamentation for the salvation of his soul, his parents, and all his blood relatives. He invokes the curses of Cain, Dathan, and the crucifiers of Christ upon anyone who might attempt to remove the reliquary from Geghardavank, sell it, or pledge it as security. Scholars have noted that David refers to himself as "abbot" (*abeghay*) in this inscription though he held the rank of bishop — a conventional expression of monastic humility also seen in other documents of the period.

1. 1. The Relic at Etchmiadzin and Its Later History

The 1768 inventory of the relics and sacred objects of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, compiled by order of Catholicos Simeon, describes the Noah's Ark reliquary as a large silver case, gilded on its face, center, and sides but not on the reverse, with a thin blue enamel border. This inventory confirms that by this period both the reliquary and its relic had been transferred from Geghardavank to Etchmiadzin, where they remain to this day. The inventory further notes that upon the relic itself was a golden cross and a silver reliquary cross, suspended by a silver chain.

The relic's left side shows a piece broken off, indicating it was once a complete rectangle. This missing piece is explained by an episode in 1766, when Catholicos Simeon I of Yerevan — seeking to strengthen Armenian–Russian relations and to secure the favor of Empress Catherine II of Russia in establishing the canonical status of the Armenian diocese within the Russian Empire — sent the empress a collection of sacred objects. Together with fragments of the relics of St. John the Baptist, St. George the Commander, and the holy martyrs of the Hripsimian group, he sent a portion of the Noah's Ark relic, enclosed in a gilded silver box and delivered by the hand of David Vardapet of Tiflis. The accompanying letter expressed the hope that these relics would serve as protection for the empress, her kingdom, and all her subjects, granting abundance in all good things, the removal of all adversity, and the healing of all pains and ailments.

In addition to the main reliquary, two smaller fragments of the Ark's wood are recorded in historical sources. One was attached by a silver chain to the reliquary of the Right Hand of St. Jacob of Mtsbin, noted both by Khachatur Abovian and by Friedrich Parrot in the early nineteenth century, the latter describing it simply as "a piece of wood hanging from the saint's finger." A second small fragment was housed inside a silver cross at Etchmiadzin, whose inscription specified: "The red part is from the wood of life [the True Cross], and the white is from Noah's Ark."

1. 1. Jacob's Spring and Its Miraculous Properties

The spring that miraculously appeared on the slopes of Ararat when Jacob prayed during his ascent became an enduring site of veneration. Located above the village of Akori — on the path toward Ararat's summit — it gave rise to a church built there in the eighth century, mentioned in both the twelfth-to-thirteenth-century *Life of St. Jacob* and a fifteenth-to-sixteenth-century Armenian edition of the *Sayings of the Desert Fathers*. The village of Akori itself was etymologically linked by medieval tradition to Noah, its name interpreted as *Ark-Uri* — "here Noah planted the vine" — since, according to tradition, this was where Noah descended from the mountain and planted the first vineyard after the Flood. The entire village was catastrophically destroyed in the earthquake and volcanic eruption of 1840, when a massive landslide from Ararat's slopes buried it entirely.

The water of Jacob's Spring acquired a remarkable and widely attested reputation for attracting a particular species of bird — called *tarm*, *ttegush*, or *saryak* in Armenian, and identified by the naturalist V. Weidenbaum as *Pastor roseus*, the rosy starling — that fed voraciously on locusts and could protect crops from devastation. The tradition held that filling a vessel with water from the spring and placing it in a locust-infested field was sufficient to draw flocks of these birds, which would rapidly eliminate the infestation. Friedrich Parrot, who camped at the monastery of St. Jacob on his three attempts to ascend Ararat in 1829, recorded this belief in detail, noting that educated people as well as ordinary villagers assured him of its truth, and that a bottle of this water had reportedly been rushed to the Kizlyar region of the northern Caucasus some years before to combat a locust plague there with complete success — a bottle said to be preserved with its remaining holy water in the church at Kizlyar. The historian Ghevond Alishan, drawing on European as well as Armenian sources, records that in 1473 King James of Cyprus sent two men to Armenia specifically to bring back water from this spring for use against locusts, and refers to the birds themselves as *sturnus roseus* in Latin, noting that Armenians called them "St. Jacob's birds" because they appeared in response to the saint's water. Mesrop Taghiadyan describes the elaborate ceremonial with which the water was transported — never permitted to touch the ground during the journey, suspended from a tripod of staffs overnight — and the solemn procession by which it was poured into irrigation channels and furrows, after which the birds would arrive with extraordinary speed. Even the Russian imperial government on occasion funded expeditions to obtain the water during locust outbreaks, most notably in 1879.

1. 1. The Inaccessibility of Ararat's Summit

A substantial part of the article concerns the deeply rooted belief, grounded in the story of St. Jacob, that it was divinely forbidden for any mortal to ascend to the summit of Ararat. From Buzand's account, where the angel explicitly tells Jacob that the Lord does not will him to see the Ark, this prohibition became generalized into a broad cultural and theological conviction that Ararat's peak was closed to human beings, with Jacob's experience serving as the founding precedent. The fourteenth-to-fifteenth-century theologian Grigor Tatevtsi states flatly that "no one can ascend and see Ararat."

European travelers who passed through Armenia over many centuries encountered and recorded this belief, frequently adding their own interpretations. Marco Polo, beginning his famous eastward journey in 1271 from the Armenian port of Ayas in Cilicia, wrote that in Armenia there is a great mountain upon which Noah's Ark rests, and that its summit is perpetually covered with snow so deep that no one can ascend it. The Italian diplomat Ambrogio Contarini, traveling through Armenia in 1473–77, noted that many had tried to climb the mountain and either never returned or reported finding no way to the top. William of Rubruck, who passed through Armenia in 1252 on his way to Mongolia, had been told by an Armenian clergyman the story of St. Jacob and recorded an elder's mystical explanation: "No one should climb Masis — she is the mother of the world." General Gardane, Napoleon's representative, passing through the Ararat plain in 1807 on his way to Persia, recorded the local Persian and Turkish belief that travelers who had tried to climb were found asleep at the base after having apparently descended unconsciously during the night — an elaboration of Jacob's story in which the saint repeatedly woke to find himself no higher than when he had started. The British diplomat James Morier, traveling the same region in 1808–09, was told that a pasha had sent a hundred men to attempt the ascent and all had perished.

This accumulated tradition of centuries was the backdrop against which **Friedrich Parrot** of Dorpat University, accompanied by the young Armenian deacon Khachatur Abovian, made the first documented successful ascent of Ararat in October 1829. Parrot himself described the Armenian belief fully and respectfully: that since Noah's time, by divine decree, no mortal was permitted to approach the Ark, and that the story of St. Jacob — who repeatedly fell asleep during his ascent only to wake and find himself at the same point on the mountain — had established this prohibition. Parrot's success immediately generated controversy. Rumors spread in Armenian, Russian, and European circles that he had not truly reached the summit, motivated partly by the deeply held conviction that such an ascent was divinely forbidden. To refute these accusations, Parrot had his companions officially sworn before Russian imperial authorities. Abovian, writing in German, attested to the ascent and addressed the theological sensitivity directly, arguing that they had stood only on the snow covering the sacred ground, not on the ground itself where the Ark had rested — a careful distinction that sought to honor the tradition while affirming the physical fact of the climb.

Mesrop Taghiadyan, another deacon of Etchmiadzin who wrote a travelogue a few years after Parrot's ascent, was openly hostile to the expedition, describing it in the darkest terms through the voice of the abbot of St. Jacob's Monastery. He compared the act to "wishing to tear open like serpents the womb of the mother of all humanity," and drew a pointed contrast between St. Jacob — who received a relic through his piety and humility — and those who dared the ascent through sheer audacity. The theological concept underlying Taghiadyan's condemnation was the understanding of Ararat's summit as the "womb" (*organd*) of humanity: since the Ark came to rest there and from it human and animal life was reborn onto the earth, the summit was in a meaningful sense the origin point of the world's renewed existence. Taghiadyan derived even the mountain's name *Azatn Masis* from this idea, interpreting *azat* (meaning "free" or "liberated") in the sense of a woman successfully delivered in childbirth — the mountain that was "delivered" of new life. The baron August von Haxthausen, traveling in Armenia in the 1840s with Abovian as his guide, also recorded that Armenians called Masis "the mother of the world," an idea traceable at least to Rubruck's thirteenth-century account.

1. 1. The Theological Significance: Noah's Ark as Type of the Church

The concluding section of the article situates the relic within the broader framework of Christian typological theology, in which Old Testament material realities are understood as prefiguring and being superseded by their New Testament spiritual counterparts. Just as the sacrificial lamb was superseded by the unbloody rational sacrifice of the Divine Liturgy, and the manna that fed but could not ultimately sustain Israel in the desert was superseded by the Eucharistic communion, so Noah's Ark — which saved its passengers from the waters of the Flood but did not transform them, since the beast entered as a beast and emerged as one — was superseded by the Christian Church, which saves souls from the flood of sin and transforms those who take refuge in it, sending them forth with gentled spirits. This typological understanding explains why the central hall of a church building has long been called a "nave" (from the Latin *navis*, ship), and why early churches were depicted in ship-like form.

Armenian theological literature develops this parallel with particular richness. A paracanonical hymn on St. Jacob states that, in place of Noah's Ark, humanity was given the gift of the Holy Catholic Church. Nerses Shnorhali's riddle describes Noah as a righteous man who "built a traveling church." Grigor Tatevtsi writes that "the Holy Church, built by Christ, is a spiritual ark for us in the midst of the sea of this world, saving our souls from the waters of sin." Catholicos Simeon of Yerevan argues that Etchmiadzin surpasses Noah's Ark because the Ark was constructed of wood, while Etchmiadzin was traced by heavenly light — a reference to the vision of Gregory the Illuminator in which the Only-Begotten Son descended from heaven and struck the earth with a golden hammer to mark the site of the future cathedral.

An ancient Armenian tradition further strengthens the connection between Ararat and Etchmiadzin by relating that after descending from Ararat, Noah offered a thanksgiving sacrifice on the very spot in the Ararat plain where the Mother Cathedral would later be built. Thus the Ark resting on the summit and the cathedral rising on the plain below are understood as forming a single spiritual continuum across time — the Ark's material reality transformed into its eternal spiritual fulfillment. This understanding has long shaped Armenian sacred art, in which Etchmiadzin is characteristically depicted against the backdrop of Ararat, with the Ark visible on the snowy peak above and the Mother Cathedral ascending from the plain below as its earthly and spiritual reflection.

The article concludes with the observation that while Parrot's 1829 ascent made the physical summit of the ark-bearing mountain accessible to mortal feet for the first time in recorded history, Noah's Ark itself remains forever beyond human reach — not because of snow or altitude, but because, like all the material symbols of the Old Covenant, it has been spiritually transformed into its transcendent counterpart: Holy Etchmiadzin, Noah's Ark of the Armenian people.

Mount Judi Buzandaran Patmutiwnk

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Abovyan + Charents

For many centuries, Armenians have regarded Ararat with awe. This attitude is illustrated by the reaction of the Armenian clergy to the first recorded ascent of the mountain, in which the pioneer modern Armenian novelist took part. Xacʿatur Abovean, ... Professor Friedrich Parrot of Dorpat University (now Tartu, in the Estonian SSR) led an expedition to Mount Ararat. Abovean, as the only Russian-speaking cleric at Ēǰmiacin, was given the reluctant permission of the Catholicos to accompany the Western scholar and his party. On 28 September 1829 Parrot and his associates, including Abovean, reached the summit of Greater Ararat. Abovean was regarded with deep hostility from then on by the Armenian clergy, who considered him guilty of desecration of the sacred mountain.

Abovean's ascent was a rejection of Armenian religious tradition which marked his decisive break with the clerical leadership; hounded and persecuted thereafter, he disappeared from his home in Kʿanakʿeṙ nineteen years later and was never heard from again.

For the later Soviet Armenian poet Elišē Čʿarencʿ, Abovean's journey, no less than his pioneering novel in the vernacular language Vērkʿ Hayastani 'The Wounds of Armenia' (1848), marked the beginning of Armenian modernism. He called his poem to Abovean Depi lyaṙn Masis 'Towards Mount Ararat' (1933), yet even Čʿarencʿ seems to have retained some of the traditional regard for the mountain, for he calls Masis anhas pʿaṙkʿi čampʿa 'a road to unattainable glory' in a tał ('song', a medieval verse form) written in 1920.

Pagan

The source discusses Armenian mythological traditions associated with sacred sites and landmarks, specifically focusing on the monastery of St. Karapet and its subterranean features. While the specific names "Ararat" and "Aragac" do not appear in the provided pages, the text details the legend of the višap (serpent or dragon-like creatures) and their habitations. These beings are described as living in "mountain palaces," with the 13th-century writer Vahram Vardapet noted as reporting their presence in high mountain peaks. The text also references the Batman Su (Aracani) river and the bridge over it, connecting local folklore about the Kal dew (lame demon) to specific physical landscapes and ancient pagan structures repurposed by Christian tradition.

Artavazd

In one episode the Armenian king Artawazd, cursed by his father Artašēs, falls into the chasm of greater Ararat (Arm. Azat Masik‘). He is chained there, held by giants called k‘aǰk‘. Since dogs are gnawing at the chains to free him, mediaeval Armenian writers report that blacksmiths begin their working week by striking their anvils thrice to strengthen the chains of Artawazd. Artawazd’s mother, Sat‘enik, was something of a witch; but there is no record of Artawazd receiving and teaching visitors. Nor are there any snakes in the myth, which is so reminiscent of the tale of Ažī Dahāka, Zohhak, chained or crucified in Mt. Damāvand and tortured by the two snakes that spring from either shoulder. But Armenian lore abounds in višaps, serpentdragons, in the region of Ararat. 20[20 On Artawazd, see Russell 1987 Ch. 13 “Captive Powers”; Russell 1994; Russell 1986- 87; and Russell 2006.]
...ancient Armenian sources call P‘ok‘r and Azat Masik‘— Little and Greater Ararat...

In Arm. , the word for "brave is k aj , which may "be of Iranian origin, and is also the name of a race of supernatural creatures who are said to dwell within Mt. Ararat. In the Arm. epic fragments preserved "by Movses Xorenac i, Artaxias curses his son Artawazd, who is taken captive by the k aj-k . P awstos Buzand refers to p c ark G t agaworac n ew baxtk n ew k a^ut iwn 'the glory of kings and their fortune and bravery' (IV. 2k).
It is likely that the k ajk of Mt. Ararat represented in fact the royal ancestral spirits, who received reverence from Artaxias, as we shall see, as the fravasis of Zoroastrianism.

Azat Masik

118

262. Noble Masis’. Azat Masis. See I 12 n. 115 for Masis (modem Mount Ararat). The Primary History, p. 10, uses Azat as a noun for Masis. 
For the spirits (k ‘ajk') who live on Masis, cf. II 61, and Adontz, ROC 1925-1926, Elishe, Questions, pp. 14ff.

Russell, J. R Armeno-Iranica II "Armenian Masis,” Acta Iranica 25 (1985): 455-458, reprinted in his Studies.

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The name "Ararat" occurs in Armenian literature from the early medieval period, following the invention of the Armenian alphabet.

Both Ararat and Masis are also common male first names among Armenians.

Maps

Contessa, Andreina (October 2004). "Noah's Ark on the two mountains of Ararat: The iconography of the cycle of Noah in the Ripoll and Roda Bibles". Word & Image. 20 (4): 257–270. doi:10.1080/02666286.2004.10444022. ISSN 0266-6286.

Politics

Pashinyan

Pashinyan remarks Alen https://www.azatutyun.am/a/32798442.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg6tvCogjIw «Արարատի և Արագածի արանքում»

https://archive.ph/R5wEq Եթե մենք բանակը բարեփոխում ենք Արարատի և «պատմական Հայաստան»-ի խոսույթի ներքո, միջազգային հանրության տեսակետից թիրախ ենք դարձնում․ վարչապետ

Kocharyan: No one intends to capture Ararat; it is our national symbol. The current government is undermining our understanding of such symbols. https://x.com/RobertKocharyan/status/1924356229893165223 https://archive.ph/TLlNi

One way Pashinyan is trying to lay the groundwork for a lasting peace is by promoting a rethink of the country’s conception of itself. Over the past two years, through speeches, social media campaigns and changes of national symbols, he has attempted to construct a new national narrative, the story of what he calls “real Armenia” in contrast with what he rejects as the antiquated “historical Armenia”.11 The idea is to look forward, not backward, and to celebrate Armenia as it is today, within its current borders. That means, for example, no longer regarding Mount Ararat – which lies just over the border in Türkiye – as lost Armenian territory. https://www.crisisgroup.org/europe-central-asia/caucasus/armenian-azerbaijani-conflict/98-armenia-and-azerbaijan-hard-road-lasting-peace

Armenia is set to remove the image of Mount Ararat from its border-crossing stamps, according to a government decree approved on Thursday. While the decision does not explicitly mention the mountain, it replaces earlier regulations that required the symbol to be included on the stamps.

Foreign

When in October 2023 French foreign minister Catherine Colonna visited Armenia, she posted a photo of the mountain on Twitter, to which Turkey's envoy for normalization with Armenia Serdar Kılıç responded that it is "located within Turkish borders and thus inseparable part of Türkiye. Therefore, I am afraid you are either gravely confused about the intended destination of your visit or pitifully need education on at least basic level of geography."

Serzh

Football Federation of Armenia logo

Access

In the early 2000s, it was closed for climbers without permission, due to the high risk of terrorism. The PKK terrorist group, which carried out terrorist attacks in southeastern and eastern Türkiye for decades, also used the mountain as a hideout. Operations in recent years have largely wiped out the PKK presence in the region. Professor Ersan Başar, president of the Turkish Mountaineering Federation, says Ağrı, which is mostly located in the eponymous eastern province, has hosted more than 20,000 climbers this year and most of them were foreigners. Başar told Anadolu Agency (AA) on Wednesday that their federation was also organizing various events to draw climbers to Ağrı, including an International Mount Ağrı Climb where mountaineers reached the peak on Aug. 30, Türkiye’s Victory Day.

Aliyev

https://web.archive.org/web/20240425133727/https://president.az/en/articles/view/65580 President Ilham Aliyev: Yes, Armenia and Türkiye are currently working on the process of normalization of relations, and we support that. We have publicly stated that our support for Turkish-Armenian normalization, and you may be aware that Armenia has territorial claims not only against Azerbaijan but also against Türkiye. This issue definitely needs to be addressed. You know, that national symbol of Armenia is Aghridag Mountain, which they call Ararat, and it is situated in Türkiye, which I think is absolutely unacceptable. And my personal opinion, it is absolutely wrong to send such a message to their society. I remember that the previous President of Armenia, Serzhik Sargsyan, was once asked at a meeting with, I think, some young members of his party or something like that, “Now we’ve liberated the Artsakh (so-called). What about Western Armenia?” That's how they called and some of them still call Türkiye. “What about our lands? When will they be liberated?” And he said: “We did our job and this is up to you to do it.” So, this is not something I invented; you can find it on the internet. That’s what he said, and that’s what they thought. This, I think, is the biggest tragedy of Armenian society; that they really thought they could separate that part of Türkiye from Türkiye and adjust it to Armenia. So, they overestimated themselves, and this is their biggest problem. Now they want to normalize, and we support it, but they need to get rid of all these attributes.

aesthetic

Great Ararat is a huge broad-shouldered mass, more like a dome than a cone; Little Ararat is an elegant pyramidal cone, rising with smooth, steep, regular sides to a comparatively sharp peak.

216 As a whole the mountain has the shape of an imperfect cone on an extensive and gentler base. The cone's imperfection is to be formed on an ellipse rather than a circle, and the contours of the base follow the same ellipse. The latter is oriented roughly from northwest to south-east. The steep sides of the main mountain's cone level out in the ice.capped summit region. The walls of the principal crater have presumably been worn away. Little Ararat (Turk. "Küçük Agri Dag"), rises from the mountain's eastern flank;however Little Ararat is itself a much more regular cone. pdf page, not actual page

Bardakjian, Kevork (1981). "Armenia and the Armenians through the Eyes of English Travelers of the Nineteenth Century". In Hovannisian, Richard G. (ed.). The Armenian Image in History and Literature. Undena Publications. p. 142. ISBN 978-0890030882. What struck the travelers most was Ararat's imposing view which they found stupendous, "rising in majesticand solitary grandeur."9

Mabel Evelyn Elliott: At the foot of Mount Ararat, "Mother of the World," all Armenia becomes comprehensible. Mount Ararat has seen from the beginning the life of Armenia, coming out of the mists in which history's memory begins, crossing all remembered centuries, and going on indomitably into the future. The vastness and silence of the mountain reduces all human things to their proportions in the universe, and the short tale of mankind's life on earth becomes a chapter in the story of Mount Ararat.

Leonid Volynsky, 1963

p. 126 / Потому что Арарат-Масис—это как бы душа Армении, его не отделишь от ее песен и сказок, не оторвешь от ее пейзажа, ее истории.
p. 139 /  Арарат в озникает без предисловий, он. открыто стоит на ковре р авнины, и в этом его особое, негрозное величие.
p. 149 / Арарата. Его вершины, затянутые мглой, рисовались силуэтом, чем-то напоминая нагую грудь м атери-земли.

John Buchan Telfer called it a "magnificent mountain, peerless among the mighty works of the Creator". He wrote that he looked at the mountain with a "childish feeling of delight" and "earnest admiration, for it is in truth a noble and graceful mountain."

August von Haxthausen: ...I think that anyone who has seen Ararat, "the holy mountain," the most imposing which it is possible for the imagination to conceive, must have shared the feeling which forced itself upon my own mind on beholding it, that this alone could have been the summit upon which the Ark, the cradle of the new race of man, grounded and remained.

Colin Thubron: 'Look! Ararat!' I followed his gaze. Luminous with snow, the mountain had appeared as if from nowhere. It hung like a spectre over the plain. It was solitary, complete, severed in the sky. Only a dirty string of lesser hills drifted away from it to the west. I had failed to notice it because haze cut it off from the alluvial valley beneath, leaving its summit to swim in solitude. Unearthly, treeless, it belonged to another time and substance from the plains. Its andesitic slopes presented themselves not for mining but for worship--the patriarchal mountain of Noah, and landfall of the Ark.

Robert Ker Porter (1817–20) Porter, Robert Ker (1821). Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, ancient Babylonia, &c. &c. Volume 1. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown. pp. 186–188. https://archive.org/details/travelsingeorgia02port/page/636/mode/2up?view=theater Noah's ark in the valley between the peaks

Russell, Zoroastrianism, 1987, awe

unsorted

https://twitter.com/StJohnLazar/status/1725305514693742632 Azerbaijani "intellectual" Adnan Hajizada who is complaining that Mount Ararat on the coat of arms of Armenia represents territorial claim against Turkey is probably not aware that the Azerbaijani city of Nahçıvan also has Ararat on its coat of arms. https://e-news.pro/mnenie-i-analitika/206362-nahichevan-mesto-pervoy-vysadki.html

American Biblical Repository: Devoted to Biblical and General ... 1836

... the very same which is now preserved as the most valuable relic in the cathedral of Echmiadzin . The belief in the impossibility of ascending Mount Ararat has in consequence of this tradition , which is sanctioned by the church...

Russell 1987

• Russell, James R. (1987). Zoroastrianism in Armenia. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-96850-9.

appearance

the grandeur and majesty of the brilliant white snow cap of Ararat, seeming to float in Heaven, must have inspired religious awe in the ancient Armenians as it continues to do to this day.

Yet one of the striking features of Mount Ararat is its terrible chasm, the Ahora Gorge (Arm. Akori ) , on the northeast face of the mountain.

The Assyrian Urartu, Babylonian Urastu (on which cf . infra ) and Heb. Ararat (Dead Sea scrolls ' wrrt , *Urarat) have been connected with Arm. Ayrarat and the Alarodioi of Herodotus 3.9h and T.T9- 
It is worth noting that the 'mountains of Ararat' upon which Noah's ark rested were probably thought to be in Gordyene, to the south of the present-day Mt. Ararat (Tk. Agri dag; Arm. c c Azat Masik , Masis), for the fifth-century Armenian historian P awstos Buzand writes that the Syrian St. Jacob of Nisibis climbed Mt. Sararad in Gordyene to search for pieces of wood from the Ark. The tradition connecting the Biblical Mt. Ararat with Gordyene is attributed by Alexander Polyhistor (first cent. B.C.) to Berosus (third cent. B.C.), and it is likely that it was forgotten in Armenia only gradually, as the Christian See of Valarsapat (Ejmiacin) eclipsed in importance and authority the first See of the Armenian Church, at Astisat.
Mt. Ararat (i.e., Azat Masik ) was believed by the Armenians to be the abode of the C Y C legendary k ajk and the prison of King Artawazd, much as the Iranians regarded Mt. Demavand as the place where Thraetaona had bound Azi Dahaka; it is also the highest mountain in Armenia, and must have been 9 regarded as sacred. When Valarsapat in the province of Ayrarat came to be the Mother See of the Church, the Biblical legend must have attached to the noble peak in whose shadow the great Cathedral of Ejmiacin stands, the mountain having been re-named after the province (the ace. pi. of the original name survives as Arm. Masis).

check

J. R. Russell, 'Urartu-Ararat-Masis, ' The Armenian Church , New York, 23, 1, Winter 1980, l6.

Armenian

Sargsyan, Dmitry (2001). "Բիբլիական «Արարատի լեռները» ըստ սեպագիր արձանագրությունների [Biblical "Mountains of Ararat" According to Cuneiform Inscriptions]". Patma-Banasirakan Handes (2): 268–276.

Rahmdel, Samaneh (2014). "The Impact of Mount Ararat on Formation of Armenian Cultural Landscape". Journal of Art and Civilization of the Orient (JACO). 2 (4). Tehran: Nazar Research Center. ISSN 2345-6620.

Özgüç, Tahsin (1967). "Ancient Ararat". Scientific American. 216 (3): 38–47. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0367-38. JSTOR 24931432.

Մասիս/Արարատը՝ հայոց Օլիմպոս և նրա առասպելները

https://web.archive.org/web/20221211125315/https://arar.sci.am/dlibra/publication/286417/edition/263002/content

Jebel Aqra
Baal
Mount Süphan

Petrosyan

Petrosyan, Armen (2016). "Biblical Mt. Ararat: Two Identifications". Comparative Mythology. 2 (1): 68–80. ISSN 2409-9899.

In ancient Armenian tradition this is the main myth related to Masis.

According to Khorenatsi (I. 30), it was on the eastern slope of this “great mountain” that the legendary king Tigran settled Anoyš, the wife of the Median king Aždahak, defeated and murdered by him, and her descendants, together with numerous captives. Aždahak originates from the Iranian Aži Dahāka, the name of the mythical Snake, the rival of the hero Θraētaona. Aždahak’s descendants are called višapazuns ‘descendants of Višaps’, i.e., ‘Dragonids’. Višap-dragons are opposed to the spirits-k‘aĵs, yet are in many ways equivalent to them (for the višaps and k‘aĵs see A. Petrosyan 2010a). According to the legends, the k‘aĵs keep King Artawazd (Tigran’s descendant) enchained in a cave on the Mt. Masis. Two dogs gnaw his chains, and he strives to free himself to put an end to the world. Artawazd himself is considered a modification of the Višap dragon. The closest parallels to the story of Artawazd are the Armenian and Caucasian myths about chained or captive heroes: Armenian Mher the Younger, Georgian Amirani, Abkhazian Abrskil, et al.

Two-headed Masis could very likely be conceived as “the twin mountain” and, hence, juxtaposed with Māšu. In Armenian folklore, Masis is referred to as “the Black mountain” and “the Dark land” (Abeghian 1966: 136), which could obviously be put in parallel with Gilgameš’s journey in darkness after reaching Mt. Māšu and “the mountain / land of the dark” in other ancient Semitic sources.

In Armenian pre-Christian religion, k‘aĵ is the epithet of the god Vahagn, who also had the traits of the sun god. Vahagn was evidently the first of the k‘aĵs as well as their chief. Accordingly, Masis, as the dwelling place of the k‘aĵs, again links up with the sun, just as Māšu does. To a certain degree, the characters of the scorpion-men of mountain Māšu and the višaps and k‘aĵs of Masis are comparable too. So, both Māšu and Masis are typical “world mountains” reaching the sky above and the underworld below (H. Petrosyan 2002: 36-37).

According to Khorenatsi, the name Masis goes back to Amasia, Hayk’s grandson, while Anonym mentions Marseak (Abraham’s domestic slave, who ran away from Isaac and settled down in Armenia) as the eponym of the mountain. Both of the views are typical examples of “popular etymology” and are linguistically unacceptable. Masis / Masik‘ (Maseac‘ in the genitive case) are plural forms; the nominative single is Masi < *Masiā, with the suffix *-i(y)ā. Before the drop of the last vowel (i.e., before the first centuries AD) the name should have been in the form of Masía. Evidently, this name is inseparable from the Akkadian Māšu. In the Assyrian version of the Akkadian language, Māšu sounded Māsu. Māšu, as previously mentioned, is identified with the mountains Masios / Masius (Ṭur-Abdin), which are almost identical to Armenian Masis. These are likely to be the Greek-Latin versions of early Arm. Masio / Masia. The second peak in the Armenian Highland Sip‘an/ Cipan (Süphan in Turkish; situated to the north of Lake Van) is also called Masik‘. Characteristically, Sip‘an is also of apparently ancient Semitic origin (cf. Ṣapanu, the mountain of the god Ba‘al in Syria). Syrian and Mesopotamian names, thus, throughout time moved to the north, becoming identified with major mountains in the Armenian Highland.

St. Hieronymus (Jerome) in his Bible commentaries (Comm. in Isaïam, 37, 38), written in about 400 AD, tells that the mountain of Noah’ Ark is the highest in the Taurus mountain range of Armenia, in the fertile province of Ararat, where the river Araxes flows. It is, doubtlessly, Masis, in the province of Ayrarat, close to the river Araxes (Mushegyan 2003: 30 ff, with bibliography).

In an excerpt by Vardan Areveltsi, an author of the 12th century, which, according to Levon Khachikyan, traces back to the author of the 5th century, Eghishe, the biblical Ararat is argued to be Masis rather than the mountain of Corduena (L. Khachikyan 1992: 245). Other arguments are also existent, but they are all controversial (Movsisyan 2000: 48-52).

It is only at the dawn of the 2nd millennium AD that the identification of Ararat with Masis became popular. Among the reasons that led to an unequivocal identification were the fading of the ancient (pagan) traditions, which accelerated after the loss of statehood in the 11th century, and the considerable immigration of the population of the region neighboring Mt. Masis following it.

archived/retired

Conybeare, F. C. (1901). "Reviewed Work: Ararat und Masis. Studien zur armenischen Altertumskunde und Litteratur by Friedrich Murad". The American Journal of Theology. 5 (2): 335–337.

Other fringe theories have been proposed for Ararat. In the 19th century Wilhelm Gesenius speculated, without evidence, an origin from Arjanwartah, an unattested Sanskrit word without any clear cognates, supposedly meaning "holy ground". Historian Ashot Melkonyan suggested that the name Ararat derives from the Aryan-Indo-European root "ar," which also forms the basis of "Armenia".

Hovhannes Tumanyan tentatively proposed an etymology from purported Sanskrit words ma (mother) and sis (summit, peak or height) by citing Ivan Yagello's Hindustani-Russian Dictionary (1902). Tumanyan also referred to the Anatolian mother goddess, who was called "Ma" or "Amma" locally as a possible inspiration. Hrachia Acharian disagreed, noting that the earlier variant is Masik‘, while Masis is the accusative case.