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Ashkharhatsuyts (classical Armenian: Աշխարհացոյց)

the Geography, historically attributed to Movses Khorenac‘i, then non-unanimously attributed to Anania Širakac‘i, and which has occasionally been a matter of a discussion that is unresolved to this day.

Another original work is his Ashkharbatsuyts (Geography), which contains a detailed description of the fifteen provinces of Armenia as well as valuable information about the neighboring countries of Georgia, Caucasian Albania, and Persia.

The Ašxarhac'oyts' or Geography is ascribed to Ananias. Based on Ptolemy's Geography, Ananias' direct source is Pappus of Alexandria's Chronographia Oecumenica (4th cent.); it adds information on Armenia, Georgia, and Caucasian Albania apparently from local sources. A long recension (before 636) and a short one, both abbreviating and expanding on it (after 640, but 7th cent.), are preserved. Yarut'iwnean's recent re-ascription of the Geography to Movses Khorenats'i hinges on dating Movses Khorenats'i and his History of the Armenians to the 5th century, a position not generally upheld in Western scholarship. Ananias composed a number of other scientific treatises as well as theological works.

His geography, based on that of Pappus of Alexandria, was the last work based on ancient geographical knowledge written before the Renaissance.33

The Geography (Asxarhac'oyc'). A summary of ancient geographical knowledge based on a lost geography by the Greek mathematician Pappus of Alexandria (fl. c. 300 A.D.) which, in turn, seems to have been based on Ptolemy. The text comprises an introduction in two parts and then a section each for Europe, Libya, and Asia. The latter section is by far the largest, containing a lengthy and detailed description of Armenia, the Caucasus, and the Persian Empire, much of which is un- known to us from any other source. The writings of Eusebius, Abydenus, Porphyry of Tyre, Marinus of Tyre, Cosmas Indicopleustes, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. Basil of Caesarea, and St. Gregory the Illuminator are also quoted in this work.

One of the most important of Anania’s works is his Geography (Arm., Asˇxarhac'oyc'), which was once thought to be the work of Moses of Xoren. This work, which survives in a long and short recension, is explicitly based on the lost Geography of Pappos of Alexandria, and also makes use of Ptolemy. It is a rambling, epitomized descriptive geography, covering all the then-known world, from Spain to China, offering nothing new except for some few details about Asia Minor. Nearly one quarter is devoted specifically to the Caucasus, Armenia, and the Sasanian empire, providing much information from local otherwise unknown sources, and comprising an invaluable source for the historical geography of these areas, but especially Armenia.

It has long been recognized that the Long Recension of the Armenian Geography (Ašxarhac‘oyc‘), although based on the lost fourth-century Geography (Chorographia oikoumenike) of Pappus of Alexandria (and ultimately on Ptolemy’s Cosmographia) preserves a remarkable description of Ērānšahr (Markwart, 1901). It divides Ērānšahr into four quarters, defined by cardinal direction, and lists the provinces in each. Significantly it includes Armenian glosses for the three Caucasian provinces: “…Armn which is Hayk‘, Varǰan which is Virk‘, Ṙan, which is Ałuank‘…” (Anania Širakac‘i/ps. Movsēs Xorenac‘i, Ašxarhac‘oyc‘, 2003, p. 2157; tr. Hewsen 1992, p. 72). This feature indicates that this short text was originally in Middle Persian and therefore retains an invaluable conception of Ērānšahr from an Iranian perspective. Although the relationship between the two recensions of the Armenian Geography seems to be more complex than previously envisaged – they both derive from a lost work and so are indirectly related to one another – the thesis that the Long Recension preserves an outline of Ērānšahr from the late Sasanian period, remains intact. This description was part of the lost underlying text, as the insertion of sections from it in the Short Recension confirms.

Anania cannot be left without reference to another text, unique in early Armenian literature, which some modem scholars have attributed to him. This is the Ashkharhatsuyts, Geography, which earlier Armenian tradition ascribed to Movses Khorenatsi but is now often ascribed to Anania. No other geographical treatise in Armenian is known before the thirteenth century. The author of this work based himself on earlier Greek sources, notably Pappus of Alexandria, whose original Geography has been lost. But to that general framework he added a very detailed description of Armenia, the Caucasus, and Iran, not found in Greek sources but based on contemporary information. Its importance as a historical document of the early seventh century is immense. But from the point of view of literary culture, it has a different kind of significance. The emphasis in this Geography is given to the political divisions of Armenia, the provinces and their subdivisions, rather than to the geology or natural geographical features of the land and its flora and fauna. It is a product of a social milieu based on landholding and bears witness to the interests of the great noble houses to which the historians had given expression in different terms.

anonymous Armenian Georgraphy is one of the most valuable works to come down to us from Armenian antiquity

our chief authority for the historical geography of ancient Armenia and Caucasia, it is an indispensable handbook for research into history, geography, and literature of the rest of Caucasia, and of the Persian Empire as well.

based largely on older Greek sources, it is also valuable for students of the classical world, and may be profitably used in the study of Ptolemy's Geography whose influence has been especially strong. the most important source of the Ashx, however, seems to have been Pappus of Alexandria, and here again the Armenian compilation is of the greatest interest, for the geographical work of Pappus has been lost.

long and short recensions, one of the first Armenian texts to be published, and one of the earliest to be subject to that criticism which has brought into question the date and authorship of half a dozen major Armenian monuments.

it is of interest to us because of what it has to tell us about Armenia, Iran and Caucasia.

one of the earliest examples of Armenian secular literature to have been published, and no less than eleven editions and four translations of it have appeared.

1668, first edition, Voskan Yerevantsi as part of an anthology of geographical fragments by Vardan Aygektsi

1736, published at the end of Movses Khorenatsi's History of Armenia in London in English, accompanied by a Latin translation 1819, French translation 1877, Russian translation

1877 Patkanian dated to the 7th century, the first to suggest Anania as the most probable author.

610 is too early a date, but the terminus cannot be later than 636

Matevosian has demonstrated that the major scientific works of Anania originally formed a single textbook called the K'nnikon (from Greek Kanonikon), a compilation comprising all the major sciences included in the medieval curriculum, completed in 666.

these sciences included what were then called the seven luberal arts, in the Knnikon divided into 2 sections: 1) intro followed by treatises in arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy 2) section containing treatises on calendrical studies, cosmography, philosophy, literature, and rhetoric. it would have been the chpater devoted to geometry which would have contained the geographical treatise originally known as Yaghags Ashxarhagrutyan, and later copied separately as Ashxarhacuyc

depicts Armenia, Caucasia, and the Persian Empire as they were prior to 636

no question that Ptolemy is an ultimate source fro the work we call the Ashx

Ashx is an attempt to present a geography of the world, not from an objective standpoint ... but from a subjective — i.e. an Armenian — point of view.

perhaps the greatest impact of the Ashx, and thereby its ultimate importance, lies in the way it has impressed the Armenian geographical self-perception: the way in which it has defined for the Armenian people the concept of 'historical Armenia'; the idea that no matter how divided or circumscribed Armenia might be at any given point in its history, the frontiers of the country — with the exception perhaps of the Caspian lowlands—are ultimately those depicted in the Ashx, anything less representing the rape of the national patrimony.

11. The Itinerary (Mlonac'ap'k). A list of six different routes from Duin, capital of Armenia, to various parts of the world, together with the distances to the major cities along each route. The distances are given in "miles" (rmon), azparez, and netajik. One "mile" equals five azparez and twenty azparez equals one netajik (or four "miles"), but the exact length of these three measurements as used by the Armenians has been disputed. In his edition of the collected works of Ananias of Sirak referred to above, ******Abrahamean considered the Itinerary to have been not only a work of Ananias but also to be a detached chapter from his Geography*********. It is only fair to add, however, that Manandean, writing two years later (1946),62 stated that there was not the slightest doubt that the Arab mile of 1,917.6 meters lay at the basis of the Itinerary and that both it and the Geography probably dated from the ninth century when the revival of Armenian trade made such works both useful and necessary to the new merchant class. Since the last point is purely conjectural and since the lifetime of Ananias of Sirak spanned both the Arab and pre-Arab periods of Armenian history by a good thirty years either way, it does not seem to me that the detection of Arab influence in either work is a convincing argument that they were written by someone else at a much later date.

The reason for the suppression of Ananias' name as author can be attributed to the bad clerical odor into which this secular author had fallen. The advantages of using, as an author, such a famous name as Khorenatsi are obvious.

Ananias was one of the greatest Armenian scholars of his day; he received his academic training in Trebizond. Half of his surviving writings deal with mathematics, cosmology or geography, but he also wrote on precious stones, and various discourses on the festivals of the Christian Church. He probably never took holy orders.

Yet it is the consideration of most specialists, including Hewsen, that much of the material in Ananias' Geography results from his own scholarship, and his own independent investigation. Certainly his work on the Caucasus has details nowhere else available.

Consensus, accepted by Hewsen, points to L as the original text, while the abridgement, S, is secondary to it.

This paper will concern itself with certain botanical terms which appear in the text. I will also comment on several of these words the meaning for which is unknown to Hewsen and the earlier modern commentators on this Geography. There is frequent mention of terms for minerals, plants, avifauna, mammals, and even lizards and insects. The animals are mentioned because they are often exotic.

Ananias noted fruit trees, and this would certainly seem to be part of a geographer's purview, for fruits, in earlier ages that lacked easily available sweets and food technology in general, would have provided an otherwise missing diversity of edibles.



Anania Shirakatsi, an outstanding author of the 7th century, is acknowledged as the greatest scientist of Medieval Armenia. He calls himself Anania Shirakatsi (according to his birthplace) or Anania, son of Jovhannes Shirakouni (Shirakouni as his family name). He is also known as Anania Anetsi (from Ani), Metzn (the Great) Anania, Anania Hamarogh (the Mathematician), etc. In early middle Ages Armenian authors referred to him as Shirakouni. Recently, the name Shirakatsi has become more widespread. Anania lived and worked in late 7th century, a relatively peaceful short period in Armenian history.

His father was Jovhannes Shirakouni, probably a minor Armenian nobleman.

We also know that as a result of this commission, Anania wrote the work entitled “K’nnikon.” Modern scholarship considers this work as a textbook that contained instruction on all disciplines of the time: grammar, rhetoric and logic or dialectic, as well as arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy, in other words, the disciplines included in the Trivium, and the Quadrivium.

The Tomar (Calendar), which was included in Anania’s K’nnikon, consisted of explanatory texts, theoretical discourses and many calendar tables. The calendars of fifteen Christian nations were represented here. Fourteen of these -indicated by Anania as Hebrews, Arabs, Macedonians, Romans, Syrians, Greeks, Egyptians, Ethiopians, Athenians, Bythanians, Cappadocians, Georgians, Albanians1, and Persians2 -had their calendars parallel presented in the part of Anania’s Tomar called “Kharnakhoran” 3.

So Anania’s presentation of Iranian calendar concerns to this Christian part of Iranian society. The same must be said concerning Arabian and Hebrew calendars. Although we have no detailed data in our sources about Christian organizations in these nations, nevertheless we have some evidences about early organized Christian communities there.

In the manuscripts of Anania’s Tomar, besides the Armenian, Roman, Hebrew, Syrian, Greek and Egyptian calendars no other calendars are known to contain detailed explanatory texts; only the names of months, their length and their doubles (“krknak” 2 in Armenian, which refers to the two days that follow the 28 days of a four-week month) are presented in separate tables. As for the beginning of each month and the New Year day for these calendars, they were given in the Kharnakhoran.

Thus, in the Calendar (Tomar) of Anania Shirakatsi, the calendar of Christian Persians was presented under the name “Persian calendar,” a name that continued to be used in Armenian calendar tradition also in later centuries. This was a calendar of the Julian type, with an average of 365.25 days per year and 12×30 days+5=365-days structure in a year, with an additional day for the leap year, once every four years, on March 3. The New Year day was on August 6.

The Arabic calendar that was presented in Anania’s Tomar, as in later centuries, until late Middle Ages, is known in two versions. The first, called “Arabic calendar,” was the calendar of Christian Arabs, while the second called “Muslim calendar” was the calendar of Muslim Arabs. The first version was of the Julian type, with an average length of 365.25 days per year and 12×30 days+5=365-day structure in a year, with an additional day of leap year, once every four years, on March 16. The New Year day of this calendar was on March 22. The Muslim Arabic calendar was a simple lunar one with 29 and 30 successive days a month. The New Year day of this calendar was, of course, moveable1.

Another description of the territorial boundaries of Greater Armenia is to be found in Ananias of Sirak's Geography. Ananias described in great detail how Greater Armenia was composed of fifteen areas. Each of the fifteen areas was further analyzed by Ananias in considerable detail, specifically the borders of each area were given and, then, each area's constitutive districts were listed and described. Unfortunately, even though Ananias' Geography was modelled after various ancient geographies and, as such, is most certainly not an example of Christian historiography, its description of Greater Armenia is still unreliable. Written probably in the early seventh century,72) Ananias' Geography appears to conflate descriptions of Greater Armenia from two different eras, one being Greater Armenia before its division in 387, and the second being Armenia after 591. Indicative of the artificiality of Ananias' image of Greater Armenia is the fact that at no period of time did the fifteen areas of Greater Armenia, as listed and described by Ananias, exist at the same time.73) Nonetheless, it is of some significance that there existed such a relatively precise geographical conception of the territory of Greater Armenia



Անանիա Շիրակացին ջատագով է պետականության և օրենքի գերակայության: Նա, անշուշտ, երազում է վերականգնված տեսնել Հայոց միասնական թագավորությունը, ուստի, իր Աշխարհացույցում ներկայացնում է Մեծ Հայքի Արշակունյաց թագավորության ժամանակաշրջանը:


 * Geography

http://lraber.asj-oa.am/2593/ Արտաշես Մաթևոսյան (հայագետ)

http://hpj.asj-oa.am/1382/

http://lraber.asj-oa.am/6604/

http://lraber.asj-oa.am/4577/

http://baas.asj-oa.am/120/

http://hpj.asj-oa.am/3155/

http://lraber.asj-oa.am/4585/