Herodotus' theory on Armenian origins debunked by first whole-genome study

Phys dot org ^ | November 25, 2024 | Trinity College Dublin

[SunkenCiv]

Armenians, a population in Western Asia historically inhabiting the Armenian highlands, were long believed to be descendants of Phrygian settlers from the Balkans. This theory originated largely from the accounts of the Greek historian Herodotus, who observed that Armenians were armed in Phrygian fashion when serving in the Persian army. Linguists further supported this theory, suggesting that the Armenian language shares ties with the Thraco-Phrygian subgroup of Indo-European languages.

But the first whole-genome study challenges this long-held belief, revealing no significant genetic link between Armenians and the populations in the Balkan region. The study compares newly generated modern Armenian genomes and published genetic data of ancient individuals from the Armenian highlands with both modern and ancient genomes from the Balkans...

The researchers behind the new study also disproved another belief—claims of an Assyrian ancestry for the Sasun, an Armenian population that inhabited the southern part of the Armenian highlands (modern-day southeastern Turkey). This connection had been referenced in many historical sources, including the Bible, in cuneiform texts, and local traditional stories. Instead, they found that the Sasun had experienced a significant contraction in size in the recent past, which sets them apart from other populations...

Researchers also shed light on the population structure and genetic variation of different Armenian groups, finding that populations from the eastern, western, and central parts of the Armenian highlands show a relatively high level of similarity.

['Civ: Huh?]

[Verginius Rufus]

Some Albanians and some Croats fled to Italy to escape the Turks in the Early Modern period (and their descendants continue to speak their ancestral languages) but I think they are confined to fairly small parts of Italy. In ancient times one of the Indo-European languages spoken in southeastern Italy was related to an Indo-European language spoken on the eastern side of the Adriatic.

Armenian is an Indo-European language, the only one in its group, but its closest relative is supposed to be Greek. It's also related to the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European, and of course more distantly to the other branches. It absorbed loan words from many other languages over time including some from the indigenous non-Indo-European languages of the Caucasus region.

[Mr. Blond]

I’ve long heard they were a Semitic people.

[imardmd1]

No way. According to the Bible. the history of it being more credible, things would have been exactly opposite. Noah's descendants, coming down from Mt. Ararat and spreading from that region near Lake Van, some would have remained behind for ages, with the rest multiplying and populaying the rest of the globe.

Spaniards descending from Armenians sounds more reasonable to me.

[Verginius Rufus]

There was an area in the Caucasus known as Iberia in ancient times (now in the western part of Georgia, including Tbilisi). Close to Armenia, but inhabitants would have spoken an unrelated language.

[imardmd1]

I thought that Iberia was/is the European peninsula with Spain and Portugal its nations.

[Cronos]

Both were termed "Iberia" by the Greeks.

Historian Adolfo Domínguez Monedero argues that the name Iberian was given by Ancient Greeks to two different peoples located at the extremities of their world (in the Iberian Peninsula and the Caucasus) due to the mythical wealth associated with them (Tartessos and the Golden Fleece of Colchis).

Noite that the Greeks also used the term "Albania" -- which the ALBANIANS don't call themselves

The endonomic name for Albania (what they call tehmselves) is Shqipteria and that's what they have called each other for millenia

[Verginius Rufus]

In modern times Iberia does mean the Iberian peninsula which has Spain and Portugal. The name comes from the Latin form of the River Ebro in the northeastern part of the peninsula.

[SunkenCiv]

Really, I’d never seen or heard a peep about that.

https://www.reddit.com/r/armenia/comments/1baabhp/armenians_are_european_not_only_culturally_but/

[Mr. Blond]

Probably from people who don’t split hairs about Levantine vs Semitic.

[SunkenCiv]

Semites and Armenians are not the same ethnic group. Levantine is a geographic area.

[imardmd1]

Regarding your comment(s) on "Iberia": That is very interesting, and curious, for in the First Book of the Torah בראשׁית (Bereshith; Genesis in English) is first mentioned עבר ('eber) the antecedent of all the (H)eber(ew) race, of whom the Judaites, our "Jews" of today, are descendants (as also are all the Arab descendants of Abraham and Ishmael, all Shemites, as was Eber). So one might presume that the area just east of the Black Sea, the location of Mount Ararat, where Noah's Ark with his sons, landed after the Great Flood, is relevant to the topic of this article.

But of that area, displayed by Cronos in the map he shows to us here (Post #26), there is another map of the same features, but placing Ararat and the beginning of the Euphrates River (also mentioned even earlier in the Genesis account of history) right smack in the middle of Iberia/Armenia!

Did not all tribes thereafter originate from this region after the confusion of languages, of which the Hebrew/Aramaic(Armenian) language was the first of all, the same language in which the Mighty God conversed with Adam and Eve?

Doesn't this go toward supporting the theory of Armenia and naming one of the predominant features of water and its life-bearing elements in recognition of the Antecedent (Eber) of their own well-known antiquity?

Thus his name is yet remembered until our day, to be retold and celebrated of God's blessing to preserve a source of holiness for us to consider?

You do know that Abraham was born in the Ur of the Chaldees^{Aramites=Armenians} (which is the SanliUrFa [not far from the Chaldean/Caucasian mountains]. This "Ur" ias just above Harran*, within a day's walk of Gobekli Tepe; not the "Ur" near the end of the Euphrates which Leonard Wooley proposed (I presume) to advance his own fame as a Biblical archaeologist. He theorized that his "Ur" was the one from which Abram was guided south to inherit the land of the depraved Canaanites that fell out of favor with the Tetragrammaton. But I think not, and s does anciently recorded history.

(can't find a good map for this
so let's just finish)

This is all just fascinating, tantalizing to the one who wants to know history from God's point of view.

I have also read that the Basques of Spain/Eber(/) and people of Georgia (contains Mideast Iberia) languages are quite uniquely similar. Hmmm.

So much more to this . . .

But thanks for your hints, my FRiends! May they bear fruit for us all!

[Kudsman]

Surely a coincidence. Until one day an ideology comes along to rewire all those dispersed languages. Miraculously, all these new languages tell people that God is dead, or he is a head chopping zealot. I'm sorry, I rebel.

[Kudsman]

Oops forgot to turn off my italics. I hardly ever preview. Like 97+ of the time. Depends on conversationalist.

[imardmd1]

I believe that S(h)emites and Ar(a)menians are of the same line of descent down from Noah and his wife.

See Genesis 10:22 and 1 Chronicles 1:17 and their contexts that affirm my conclusions. Of course, Jews and Arabs are also both Shemites.

From the Biblical information, one may also find that the "Magi" that came to worship Jesus in Bethlehem when he was about two years old, were from Padan-Aram, from a province of the Imperium Romanum Anatolia region, now called Turkey. Abram's brother Laban lived in Harran, which since the Moslems took over, was abandoned. That is an area of Turkey adjoining what used to be Armenia.

Aram's name became pretty popular among the Hebrews/Jews, it seems. Appears in many generations listed in the Bible.

(With all respect and appreciation due to your many achievements in archaeological matters, SC.)

[imardmd1]

Ripley's "Believe it or not!"

Everyone makes choices. You can only ride the fence blinded. Land on the side where the Light prevails.

Your choice whatever the cost, my FRiend.

[Cronos]

we need to remember that the first book of the Torah is to explain to simple people how God created such a complex world.

The Israelites, in genetic and linguistic terms were a sub-set of Canaanites. And the Canaanites were a sub-set of the wider Afro-asiatic group - that includes Berbers, ancient Egyptians, Ethiopians and Sudanese (Cushites)

Or a more comprehensive look at the language family tree

/

[Cronos]

Hebrew is not Aramaic. They are "cousin languages" -- Hebrew has and had more in common and in comprehensibility with Ammonite, Moabite, Phoenician etc.

Armenian is nowhere near Aramaic or Hebrew - they are not at all mutually comprehensible and are as distant as Hungarian is from Italian

[Cronos]

Doesn't this go toward supporting the theory of Armenia and naming one of the predominant features of water and its life-bearing elements in recognition of the Antecedent (Eber) of their own well-known antiquity?

I don't know what you are trying to say

There is no Eber river - there is the "EbRO" which is in Spain, but I don't know if you are referring to that. And the name Ebro seems derived from the Basque word "Ibar" meaning valley or watered meadow

The land of what is now western Syria, west of the Euphrates was called Eber-nari (or land on the other side of the river)

[Cronos]

You do know that Abraham was born in the Ur of the ChaldeesAramites=Armenians

Note that Chaldeans were not "Aramites" nor "Arameans". Chaldeans were probably proto-AramAIC speakers (a WEST semitic langauge) who came to Meopotomia around the 10th cneutry BC.

Prior to that there lived EAST Semitic Akkadian speaking Assyrians and BAbylonians

Armenians are not Assyrians, nor Aramaic peoples but are Indo-Europeans, closer related to Persians

[Cronos]

Ur is one of the more ancient SUMERIAN cities - the Sumerians were related to Elamites and Tamils (so a “proto-Dravidian”) people.

In the Sumerian kinglists from 4000 BC we have

When kingship from heaven was lowered,
the kingship was in Eridu
In Eridug, Alulim became king;
he ruled
for 28800 years.
Alaljar ruled for 36000 years

Eridu is one of the earliest settlements in the region, founded c. 5400 BC during the early Ubaid period, at that time close to the Persian Gulf near the mouth of the Euphrates

Ur is probably just a few decades younger and has archeological information from around the 5000 BC mark