Journal ArticleOpen Access
Palyan, Aram · Peltekian, Seb, 2025
Bulletin of the Institute of Oriental Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2 (2025), art. 14 (Institute of Oriental Studies, NAS RA); DOI 10.52837/27382702-2025.5.2-14
Re-examines the Mushki, one of the most obscure ethnocultural groups of the northern regions of West Asia, combining textual, linguistic and, for the first time, genetic evidence. Because eighth-century BCE Assyrian scribes used 'Mushki' for Phrygia, scholarship long inferred a Balkan origin for the group; the authors find those connections groundless. Their evaluation supports a Mushki connection to Armenians but rejects a Balkan origin for both, proposing instead a migration from the Late Proto-Indo-European homeland through the Caucasus, with the Mushki settling in the Upper Euphrates region. A link to the Kaska is judged equally plausible, while a Mushki-Georgian connection is deemed unlikely.
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Zardaryan, Mkrtich H., 2025
ARAMAZD: Armenian Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 18 (2025), pp. 48–75
Zardaryan reconstructs the road system of the Ararat Plain across two millennia, arguing that the valley's role as the economic hub of the Armenian Highlands was set by geography: its river lines and accessible passes channelled traffic along south-north and east-west axes. With the consolidation of statehood under Urartu the trade-route system expanded sharply, and was inherited and extended by the Ervandid, Artaxian and Arsacid kingdoms; from the sixth century BC these routes integrated into networks reaching the Near East, Central Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean. Narrative, archaeological and numismatic evidence confirms their incorporation into the Silk Road. His clinching illustration: five of the six capitals of Classical and Early Medieval Armenia sit in the Ararat Plain.
Journal ArticleOpen Access
Palyan, Aram · Petrosyan, Armen, 2025
Matenadaran: Medieval and Early Modern Armenian Studies (MEMAS), Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 71–96 (Mesrop Mashtots Matenadaran / Brepols); eISSN 3041-5063
Marshals the latest archaeogenetic evidence to re-examine the origins and formation of the Armenian people. The authors argue that, whatever the location of the early Indo-European homeland, the late Indo-European homeland formed in the steppe and forest-steppe of Eastern Europe between the Volga and the Dniester. Genetic data show migration across the Caucasus into the South Caucasus and the Armenian Highland from the mid-third millennium BC, whose descendants created the Trialeti-Vanadzor, Sevan-Artsakh, Van-Urmia and Lchashen-Metsamor cultures. Even at the end of Urartu (7th–6th c. BC) the population of the land of Etiuni still carried roughly 75% steppe patrilineal DNA, which the authors read as support for the Etiuni hypothesis of Armenian ethnogenesis.
Journal ArticleOpen Access
Sargsyan, Vahe, 2025
Բանբեր հայագիտության / Banber Hayagitutyan (International Review of Armenian Studies), 2025, No. 2(38), pp. 12–31; DOI 10.54503/1829-4073-2025.2.12-31
During their 1898–1899 journey through the Armenian Highlands and northern Mesopotamia, C.F. Lehmann-Haupt and the chemist W. Belck explored the presumed region of Musasir, the spiritual centre of Biainili-Urartu, and copied the Topzawa inscription. Lehmann-Haupt treated this bilingual text as a primary source for reconstructing the conflict between Urartu and Assyria under Rusa, son of Sarduri. Sargsyan shows that several of the pioneer Urartologist's reconstructions remain contested: the identity of the king who commissioned the inscription, the chronology of the events, and the causes and route of Sargon II's 714 BCE campaign.
Journal ArticleOpen Access
Novikova, Anna · Bonfanti, Annarita · Dan, Roberto, 2025
Armeniaca. International Journal of Armenian Studies, Vol. 4 (2025), Archaeology (Edizioni Ca' Foscari, Venice); DOI 10.30687/arm/2974-6051/2025/01/001
Reinterprets a ribbed bronze bowl from Karmir-blur inscribed with the name of King Sarduri as the earliest known bronze inscription of Sarduri, son of Lutipri, the first Urartian sovereign. A second Hermitage bowl bearing a similar inscription shares the same features and is likewise attributed to Sarduri I. Together the two vessels form the missing link between the earliest ribbed bowl and the later plain bronze vessels associated with subsequent Urartian kings. The article thus revises the chronology of Urartian royal metalwork and inscriptions.
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Grekyan, Yervand, 2024
ARAMAZD: Armenian Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 17, No. 2 (2024), pp. 1–44
Research on Urartian anthroponyms goes back to the turn of the nineteenth century, but scholars have concentrated almost entirely on royal and throne names, leaving ordinary personal names to scattered commentary. Grekyan attributes this partly to the limited Urartian linguistic corpus. He stresses that Urartu was a multiethnic state, deepened by large-scale deportations and planned resettlements; consequently not every name in Urartian inscriptions belongs to an Urartian, and not every Urartian bore a Hurro-Urartian name. The study assembles all available onomastic data connected to Urartu and presents it as a prosopography, widening the comparative base with second-millennium cuneiform and Hurrian material.
