 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(April 2023) |
Navasard is the first month of the Armenian calendar. Navasard has 30 days, starting on 11 August and ending on 9 September. In ancient Armenia, the first day of Navasard was a holiday. [1] In Armenian mythology, the Navasardian god was considered protector of the crops and the feeder of the hungry. His statue is currently standing in Bagavan, which today is considered a Pagan sanctuary.
The term Navasard goes back to Old Armenian նաւասարդ /nawasard/, a loan from NW-(Middle)-Iranian *nawāgsarδ 'new year' (cf. Khwarezmian: نوسارڅ [nwsʾrc] /nawsārc/, Sogdian: *nawēsarδ) consisting of the Iranian words nawa 'new' (going back to Proto-Iranian *náwah, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *néwos; cf. Classical Persian نوی /naw/, Kurmanji nû, Pashto نوی /nëway/, Ossetian ног /nog/) and sard 'year' (from Proto-Iranian *carHdáh; cf. Old Persian 𐎰𐎼𐎭 [θ-r-d] /θarda/, Parthian /sard/, Middle and New Persian سال /sāl/). The term is attested in Biruni's works (written in Classical Persian) as نوسرذ /nawsarδ/ 'the new year celebration' as well as in Aramaic nwsrdʾ /nawsardā/ 'new year'.
Navasard was also considered at one point the last month of Summer, and was referred to as the "introduction of the golden autumn".
Armenian scholar Mardiros Ananikian [2] emphasizes the identical nature of Solar Hijri calendar month Nowruz and Navasard, noting that it was only in the 11th century that Navasard came to be celebrated in late summer rather than in early spring. He states that Navasard “was an agricultural celebration connected with commemoration of the dead […] and aiming at the increase of the rain and the harvests.” The great center of Navasard, Ananikian points out, was Bagavan, the center of fire worship.
The Navasardian festivals were considered the biggest celebrations of the year. The celebrations used to last during the first week of Navasard.
Armenian families used to serve their best feasts during lunch and suppertime, having very big numbers of dining guests ranging from family to friends. They also hung stockings on their doors and impatiently expected drops of gifts put in them, as a tradition nowadays done too.
The representative Armenian Gods of the Navasardian celebrations are Astghik, Vahagn and Anahit.
In Ancient Armenia, the Navasardian celebrations carried a cultural significance and to which participated all the representatives of the nation. The celebrations were initially done at Bagavan, but then was relocated to the Ashtishat region. The celebrations also included the worship of water and rivers, therefore they chose these two regions to be also located at the shores of the Aradzani (now known as the Murat River).
On the day of the ceremonies, the region of Bagavan would be decorated in many colorful decorations. The king would be present as well as a big part of the army, up to 120,000 in number.
According to ancient book descriptions, colorful tents set up on the shore of Murat are seen, the golden tent would always belong to the king, the most noticeable of the tents usually belonged to the elite of the nation. Most of the people spent their times under big trees' shadows to hide away from the sun while they watched the celebrations and performances.
Throughout the day, doves and deer would be sacrificed in the name of the gods. Usually the horns of the deer were painted colorfully. There also was set up a big bonfire at nighttime where children and young adults would try to jump over and around it to scare and drive away bad spirits. The celebrating people would bring their first set of harvest of the year to share with others.
Horseback riding races were done, as well as deer racing. The let go hundreds of doves into the air for good luck. Dancing, singing, intellectual and athletic competitive games were a big part of the celebrations, where competitors would try to impress the ones they admire in the audience.
In Ashtishat, games similar to the current well-known Olympic games were organized to choose the best athlete in a bundle of performed games.
While the athletes competed, poets and instrumentalists merged and performed their own music and lyrics, as well as painters drew the event in various methods, accordingly to their point of view. A water festival, referred to as Vardavar, also takes place, where everyone drenched each other with water using different types of containers a bucket. The Vardavar festival is still done every year all over Armenia.
Ahura Mazda, also known as Oromasdes, Ohrmazd, Ormazd, Ormusd, Hoormazd, Harzoo, Hormazd, Hormaz and Hurmuz, is the creator deity and god of the sky in the ancient Iranian religion Zoroastrianism. He is the first and most frequently invoked spirit in the Yasna. The literal meaning of the word Ahura is "lord", and that of Mazda is "wisdom".
Nowruz or Navroz is the Iranian New Year or Persian New Year. Historically, it has been observed by Persians and other Iranian peoples, but is now celebrated by many ethnicities worldwide. It is a festival based on the Northern Hemisphere spring equinox, which marks the first day of a new year on the Solar Hijri calendar; it usually coincides with a date between 19 March and 22 March on the Gregorian calendar.
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.
Ḫaldi was one of the three chief deities of Urartu along with Teisheba and Shivini. He was a warrior god to whom the kings of Urartu would pray for victories in battle. Ḫaldi was portrayed as a man with or without wings, standing on a lion.
A feature common to all Indo-European languages is the presence of a verb corresponding to the English verb to be.
A daeva is a Zoroastrian supernatural entity with disagreeable characteristics. In the Gathas, the oldest texts of the Zoroastrian canon, the daevas are "gods that are rejected". This meaning is – subject to interpretation – perhaps also evident in the Old Persian "daiva inscription" of the 5th century BCE. In the Younger Avesta, the daevas are divinities that promote chaos and disorder. In later tradition and folklore, the dēws are personifications of every imaginable evil. Over time, the Daeva myth as Div became integrated to Islam.
Newroz or Nawruz is the Kurdish celebration of Nowruz; the arrival of spring and new year in Kurdish culture. The lighting of the fires at the beginning of the evening of March 20 is the main symbol of Newroz among the Kurds.
Armenian mythology originated in ancient Indo-European traditions, specifically Proto-Armenian, and gradually incorporated Hurro-Urartian, Mesopotamian, Iranian, and Greek beliefs and deities.
Aramazd was the chief and creator god in the Armenian version of Zoroastrianism. The deity and his name were derived from the deity Ahura Mazda after the Median conquest of Armenia in the 6th century BC. Aramazd was regarded as a generous god of fertility, rain, and abundance, as well as the father of the other gods, including Anahit, Mihr, and Nane. Like Ahura Mazda, Aramazd was seen as the father of the other gods, rarely with a wife, though sometimes husband to Anahit or Spandaramet. Aramazd was the Parthian form of Ahura Mazda.
Tiran known also as Tigranes VII, Tigranes or Diran was an Armenian prince who served as a Roman client king of Arsacid Armenia from 339 until 350. He was a contemporary of and is associated with the life of Sarkis the Warrior and his son, Martiros.
The Celebration of the 2,500th Anniversary of the Founding of the Persian Empire was a national event in Iran that consisted of an elaborate set of grand festivities during October 1971 to celebrate the founding of the ancient Achaemenid Empire by Cyrus the Great. The intent of the celebration was to highlight Iran's ancient civilization and history as well as to showcase its contemporary advances under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The celebrations highlighted pre-Islamic origins of the country while promoting Cyrus the Great as a national hero. Note that the celebration was actually 2,520 years after the founding of the Archaemenid Empire, as it was founded in 550 BC.
Proto-Iranian or Proto-Iranic is the reconstructed proto-language of the Iranian languages branch of Indo-European language family and thus the ancestor of the Iranian languages such as Persian, Pashto, Sogdian, Zazaki, Ossetian, Mazandarani, Kurdish, Talysh and others. Its speakers, the hypothetical Proto-Iranians, are assumed to have lived in the 2nd millennium BC and are usually connected with the Andronovo archaeological horizon.
The Iranian peoples or Iranic peoples are a diverse grouping of peoples who are identified by their usage of the Iranian languages and other cultural similarities.
The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt, ancient Persia, Anatolia and the Armenian highlands, the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula. The ancient Near East is studied in the fields of ancient Near East studies, Near Eastern archaeology, and ancient history.
Nane was an Armenian mother goddess, as well as the goddess of war and wisdom.
Bagavan was an ancient locality in the central part of Armenia in the principality of Bagrevand. The site is located in the village of Taşteker to the west of modern Diyadin, Turkey. Situated on a tributary of the Euphrates at the foothills of Mount Npat, to the north of Lake Van, Bagavan held one of the major temples of pre-Christian Armenia. After the Christianization of Armenia, Bagavan became the site of a large church and monastery. Pillaged in 1877 by the Kurds, it was completely destroyed after 1915 during the Armenian genocide.
Zoroastrianism is a religion which has been practiced in the West Asian country of Armenia since the fifth century BC. It first reached the country during the Achaemenid and Parthian periods, when it spread to the Armenian Highlands. Prior to the Christianization of Armenia, it was a predominantly Zoroastrian land. The yazatas (deities) Mithra (Mihr) and Verethragna (Vahagn) particularly enjoyed a high degree of reverence in the country.
The Indo-European migrations are hypothesized migrations of Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) speakers, and subsequent migrations of people speaking derived Indo-European languages, which took place approx. 4000 to 1000 BCE, potentially explaining how these languages came to be spoken across a large area of Eurasia, spanning from the Indian subcontinent and Iranian plateau to Atlantic Europe, in a process of cultural diffusion.
Ancient Iranian religion or Iranian paganism was the ancient beliefs and practices of the Iranian peoples before the rise of Zoroastrianism.The religion closest to it was the historical Vedic religion that was practiced in India. The major deities worshipped were Ahura Mazda and Mithra from Iran to Rome, but Atar was also worshipped, as names of kings and common public showing devotion to these three exist in most cases. But some sects, the precursors of the Magi, also worshipped Ahura Mazda, the chief of the Ahuras. With the rise of Zoroaster and his new, reformatory religion; Ahura Mazda became the principle deity and the Daevas were relegated to the background. A lot of the attributes and commandments of Varuna, called Fahrana in Median times, were later attributed to Ahura Mazda by Zoroaster.
Tir is the god of written language, schooling, rhetoric, wisdom, and the arts in Armenian mythology.
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)