The Formation of the Armenian Ethnos (Period and Historical-Cultural Peculiarities), September 27

The migration paths of Hayk’s descendants on Armenian Upland as described by Movsēs Khorenatsi vividly remind the routes of the first Biaynian kings who conquered the territory of the future Biaynili (Urartu) kingdom in a few decades. This is a new argument to support the hypothesis of H. Karagyozyan and M. Katvalyan, according to whom the formation of the Armenian ethnos has happened by ethnoconsolidation-ethnomixation of all the various Indo-European and non-Indo-European tribes that inhabited the kingdom of Urartu-Biaynili (=Armenian Upland), and not by ethnoseparation (immediate separation of Armenian language carriers from the Indo-European language community) or by ethnoevolution (which means gradual absorption of other inhabitants of the Urartu kingdom by the small Armenian-speaking tribe). The process of ethnoconsolidation of Armenian people was a result of ethnointegration of multi-tribal Urartu kingdom and was completed in mid-7th century B. C. The later formed Armenian legend about the descendants of Hayk shows that a leading role in this process was played by Biaynians themselves, although the language of the newly formed ethnos (with the self-designation – endoethnonym of Hay-*Hayo– – Armenians) was an Indo-European one namely, the Armenian language spoken by the relative majority of the population of the multitribal Biaynian kingdom. Combined with other evidences in historical sources, this legend also shows that the kingdom of Urartu was not “destroyed” by anyone, rather it continued to exist as “Eruandean Armenia kingdom”, which was conquered only by Achaemenid Iran.