Matiene was the name of a kingdom in northwestern Iran [1] [2] on the lands of the earlier kingdom of the Mannae. Ancient historians including Strabo, Ptolemy, Herodotus, Polybius, and Pliny mention names such as Mantiane, Martiane, Matiana, Matiani, Matiene, Martuni to designate a region located to the northwest of Media." [3] [4]
The name Matiene may be related to Mitanni, the name of a state some 800 years earlier, which was founded by an Indo-Aryan ruling class governing the Hurrian population. [5] The name Matiene was applied also to the neighboring Lake Matianus (Lake Urmia) located immediately to the east of the Matieni people. The Iranian root "Mati-" meaning "to tower, to stand out" (from the same Indo-European root that gives us the word "mountain") might explain the name.
The Mannaeans who probably spoke a Hurro-Urartian language, were subdued by the Scytho-Kimmerians during the seventh and eighth centuries BC and assimilated by Matienes. Matiene was ultimately conquered by the Medes in about 609 BCE.
Matiene became a satrapy of the Median Empire until the Persian conquest, when along with tribes of Saspires and Alaradians (remnants of Urartians) it became a part of the XVIII satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire.
The land of Matiene was surrounded to the north by Armenia, to the east by Media, to the south by Susiana, and to the west by Assyria. Its chief city was Matiati around Lake Van.
It is believed that the population of Matiene were speaking a Hurro-Urartian language. [6] Known descendants of the kings(chieftains) of the matian tribes was Armenian princely (naxarar) family of Amatuni [7] [8]
Cimmerians were said to have originated from the Matiani by Herodotus, moving west into Anatolia along the south shore of the Black Sea. Herodotus also said that later, in Median times, there was a second site called Matiene, along the eastern shore of the Halys river in northwestern Cappadocia across the river from the Phrygians. [9] He stated they wore the same uniform as the Paphlagonians in the Median and Persian armies, meaning their units were combined with the Paphlagonians. It is not at all clear whether these western Matieni were descendants of the Cimmerians, a group of Paphlagonians just called by this name, actual (eastern) Matieni who migrated west from Matiene on their own, or a Median military colony on the border with Phrygia and later the Lydian empire.
Lydia was an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the modern western Turkish provinces of Uşak, Manisa and inland Izmir. The ethnic group inhabiting this kingdom are known as the Lydians, and their language, known as Lydian, was a member of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. The capital of Lydia was Sardis.
The Cimmerians were an ancient Eastern Iranian equestrian nomadic people originating in the Caspian steppe, part of whom subsequently migrated into West Asia. Although the Cimmerians were culturally Scythian, they formed an ethnic unit separate from the Scythians proper, to whom the Cimmerians were related and who displaced and replaced the Cimmerians.
The Medes were an ancient Iranian people who spoke the Median language and who inhabited an area known as Media between western and northern Iran. Around the 11th century BC, they occupied the mountainous region of northwestern Iran and the northeastern and eastern region of Mesopotamia located in the region of Hamadan (Ecbatana). Their consolidation in Iran is believed to have occurred during the 8th century BC. In the 7th century BC, all of western Iran and some other territories were under Median rule, but their precise geographic extent remains unknown.
The Alarodian languages are a proposed language family that encompasses the Northeast Caucasian (Nakh–Dagestanian) languages and the extinct Hurro-Urartian languages.
The Hurro-Urartian languages are an extinct language family of the Ancient Near East, comprising only two known languages: Hurrian and Urartian.
Urartian or Vannic is an extinct Hurro-Urartian language which was spoken by the inhabitants of the ancient kingdom of Urartu, which was centered on the region around Lake Van and had its capital, Tushpa, near the site of the modern town of Van in the Armenian highlands. Its past prevalence is unknown. While some believe it was probably dominant around Lake Van and in the areas along the upper Zab valley, others believe it was spoken by a relatively small population who comprised a ruling class.
The Kura–Araxes culture, also named Kur–Araz culture, Mtkvar-Araxes culture or the Early Transcaucasian culture was a civilization that existed from about 4000 BC until about 2000 BC, which has traditionally been regarded as the date of its end; in some locations it may have disappeared as early as 2600 or 2700 BC. The earliest evidence for this culture is found on the Ararat plain; it spread north in the Caucasus by 3000 BC.
Amatuni is an ancient Armenian noble family, known from the 4th century in the canton of Artaz, between lakes Van and Urmia, with its center at Shavarshan, and subsequently also at Aragatsotn, west of Lake Sevan, with the residence at Oshakan.
The Mushki were an Iron Age people of Anatolia who appear in sources from Assyria but not from the Hittites. Several authors have connected them with the Moschoi (Μόσχοι) of Greek sources and the Georgian tribe of the Meskhi. Josephus Flavius identified the Moschoi with the Biblical Meshech. Two different groups are called Muški in Assyrian sources, one from the 12th to the 9th centuries BC near the confluence of the Arsanias and the Euphrates and the other from the 8th to the 7th centuries BC in Cappadocia and Cilicia. Assyrian sources clearly identify the Western Mushki with the Phrygians, but later Greek sources then distinguish between the Phrygians and the Moschoi.
Mannaea was an ancient kingdom located in northwestern Iran, south of Lake Urmia, around the 10th to 7th centuries BC. It neighbored Assyria and Urartu, as well as other small buffer states between the two, such as Musasir and Zikirta.
Diauehi (Georgian დიაოხი, Urartian Diauehi, Greek Taochoi, Armenian Tayk, possibly Assyrian Daiaeni,) was a tribal union located in northeastern Anatolia, that was recorded in Assyrian and Urartian sources during the Iron Age. It is usually (though not always) identified with the earlier Daiaeni(Dayaeni), attested in the Yonjalu inscription of the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser I's third year (1118 BC) and in later records by Shalmaneser III (845 BC). While it is unknown what language(s) they spoke, they may have been speakers of a Kartvelian, Armenian, or Hurrian language.
Media is a region of north-western Iran, best known for having been the political and cultural base of the Medes. During the Achaemenid period, it comprised present-day Azerbaijan, Iranian Kurdistan and western Tabaristan. As a satrapy under Achaemenid rule, it would eventually encompass a wider region, stretching to southern Dagestan in the north. However, after the wars of Alexander the Great, the northern parts were separated due to the Partition of Babylon and became known as Atropatene, while the remaining region became known as Lesser Media.
The origin of the Armenians is a topic about the emergence of the Armenian people and the country called Armenia. The earliest universally accepted reference to the people and the country dates back to the 6th century BC Behistun Inscription, followed by several Greek fragments and books. The earliest known reference to a geopolitical entity where Armenians originated from is dated to the 13th century BC as Uruatri in Old Assyrian. Historians and Armenologists have speculated about the earlier origin of the Armenian people, but no consensus has been achieved as of yet. Genetic studies show that Armenian people are indigenous to historical Armenia, showing little to no signs of admixture since around the 13th century BC.
Proto-Armenian is the earlier, unattested stage of the Armenian language which has been reconstructed by linguists. As Armenian is the only known language of its branch of the Indo-European languages, the comparative method cannot be used to reconstruct its earlier stages. Instead, a combination of internal and external reconstruction, by reconstructions of Proto-Indo-European and other branches, has allowed linguists to piece together the earlier history of Armenian.
Alarodians were tribe living in Northern Persia or Armenia during Classical antiquity.
Urartu is a geographical region and Iron Age kingdom also known as the Kingdom of Van, centered around Lake Van in the historic Armenian Highlands. The kingdom rose to power in the mid-9th century BC, but went into gradual decline and was eventually conquered by the Iranian Medes in the early 6th century BC. Since its re-discovery in the 19th century, Urartu, which is commonly believed to have been at least partially Armenian-speaking, has played a significant role in Armenian nationalism.
Ancient Armenia refers to the history of Armenia during Antiquity. It follows Prehistoric Armenia and covers a period of approximately one thousand years, beginning at the end of the Iron Age with the events that led to the dissolution of the Kingdom of Urartu, and the emergence of the first geopolitical entity called Armenia in the 6th century BC. Highlights of this period include the rise of ancient Armenia as an important state in Western Asia in the 4th century BC; a briefly held empire under Julius Caesar's contemporary the Great King Tigranes II ; the kingdom's official conversion to Christianity in 301; and the creation of the Armenian alphabet in the year 405. It concludes with the demise of the Armenian kingdom and the country's partition later in the 5th century, marking the beginning of Medieval Armenia.
The name Armeno-Phrygian is used for a hypothetical language branch, which would include the languages spoken by the Phrygians and the Armenians, and would be a branch of the Indo-European language family, or a sub-branch of either the proposed "Graeco-Armeno-Aryan" or "Armeno-Aryan" branches. According to this hypothesis, Proto-Armenian was a language descendant from a common ancestor with Phrygian and was closely related to it. Proto-Armenian differentiated from Phrygian by language evolution over time but also by the Hurro-Urartian language substrate influence. Classification is difficult because little is known of Phrygian, but Proto-Armenian arguably forms a subgroup with Greek and Indo-Iranian.
Sakasena is a historical region on the territory of modern Azerbaijan. The former core of the 7th - 6th century BCE of the Scythian kingdom of Ishkuz. It got its name from the tribes of the Scythians, who later entered the tribal union of the Caucasian Albanians. At the end of the 6th - beginning of the 5th century BCE it was part of the satrapy Media under the Achaemenid Empire. At the beginning of the 2nd century BCE it was annexed to Greater Armenia, becoming the Gavar (district) of the Nahanga (province) of Utic. In the division of Great Armenia in 387, it went to the Caucasian Albania, which was, under the treaty, subordinate to the Sassanids. It was located South of the middle course of the Kura, in the area of modern Ganja.
Etiuni was the name of an early Iron Age tribal confederation in northern parts of Araxes rivers, roughly corresponding to the subsequent Ayrarat Province of the Kingdom of Armenia. Etiuni was frequently mentioned in the records of Urartian kings, who led numerous campaigns into Etiuni territory. It is very likely it was the "Etuna" or "Etina" which contributed to the fall of Urartu, according to Assyrian texts. Some scholars believe it had an Armenian-speaking population.
