Search Results: Armenia

Ancient Armenia, located in the south Caucasus area of Eurasia, was settled in the Neolithic era but its first recorded state proper was the kingdom of Urartu from the 9th century BCE. Incorporated into the Persian Empire of Cyrus the Great...

The Arsacid (Arshakuni) dynasty of Armenia ruled that kingdom from 12 CE to 428 CE. A branch of the Arsacid dynasty of Parthia, the Armenian princes also played out a prolonged balancing act by remaining friendly to the other great power...

The Christianization of Armenia began with the work of Syrian apostles from the 1st century CE and was boosted in the early 4th century CE by such figures as Saint Gregory the Illuminator, who converted the Armenian king and spread the gospel...

Movses Khorenatsi (Moses of Khoren) was a 5th-century CE Armenian historian whose work the History of the Armenians has earned him the title of the “father of Armenian history”. Drawing on ancient sources and ambitiously covering...

Artashat (aka Artaxata) was the capital of Ancient Armenia from 176 BCE and remained so for over 300 years of the kingdom's history. Located just south of Armenia's modern capital Yerevan, according to the ancient historian Plutarch, the...

Dvin (aka Duin), located 40 km south of modern Yerevan, was the capital of early medieval Armenia for four centuries. Founded in the 4th century CE, the city prospered and became the administrative head of the Armenian church. Remaining the...

Mesrop Mashtots (360/370 - c. 440 CE) invented the Armenian alphabet in 405 CE. Besides greatly increasing levels of literacy in the country, the language permitted ordinary people to read the Bible for the first time, thus helping to further...

The Roman-Parthian War of 58-63 CE was sparked off when the Parthian Empire's ruler imposed his own brother as the new king of Armenia, considered by Rome to be a quasi-neutral buffer state between the two empires. When Parthia went a step...

Last fall, Ancient History Encyclopedia (AHE) received a grant from the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) and the Knights of Vartan Fund for Armenian Studies to complete a grant project that would entail the writing...

Saint Gregory the Illuminator or Enlightener (previously known as Grigor Lusavorich, c. 239 - c. 330 CE) was the first bishop of the Armenian church, and he is widely credited with converting king Tiridates the Great to Christianity, formally...