Armenia – The Proignitor of Astronomy
- May 23, 2013
- 7 min read
The first god in Armenia was one of the language’s first sounds, ‘AR’, which means sun or light. As the source of life, the sun became equated with power and the supreme god. Ararat is mentioned as early as ca. 6000 BC in the Sumerian epoch poem Gilgamesh, as the land of the mountains where the gods live. The word Ararat can be divided into three words: AR-AR-AT. AR-AR being a plural form or all encompassing god; ‘AT’ being an archaic version of the Armenian word ‘hat’, which means ‘a piece of’. Thus Ararat meant ‘a piece of gods, or a piece of creation.
Early symbols for gods are closely connected with astral symbols. The first use of the sacred swastika and cross are found in ca. 20,000-15,000 BC inscriptions in the Geghama Mountain Range. Carvings dating back to ca. 8500 BC show symbols associated with astronomy, giving them a god like prominence: the sun, moon, and constellations were thought to be deities in themselves, and astral occurrences such as an eclipse or a comet were considered communication from the gods.
Rock carvings on Armenia’s mountains contain numerous astronomical symbols, including those on fields of stone on top of nearby Mounts Ughtasar and Ishkhanasar. The Earth, sun, moon, planets, comets, stars and constellations (even the Milky Way) are reflected in these pictures drawn on rocks in mountains around Lake Sevan and elsewhere in Armenia.
A natural result of stargazing is an understanding of the cycles of time, and a calendar. By the 5th millennium BC, Ancestral Armenians combined sun worship with sophisticated astronomy. They are now credited with assigning the constellations of the zodiac their design and names, and creating one of the first solar calendars based on 365 days in the year.
Bolstering claims that the stones at Karahundj may have an astronomical purpose is the exploration by Astrophysicist Elma Parsamian of 2800-2500 BCE observatory platforms at the ancient settlement at Metsamor (ca. 5000 BCE). The platforms have unique carvings and one a trapezium pointing to the mid 3rd millennium BCE appearance of the star Sirius through the rays of the rising sun. Her work at Metsamor is highlighted in the introduction to the Russian version of Stephen Hawking’s book on Stonehenge.
Located just outside the village of Taronik, Metsamor (which means “black swamp” or “black quicksand”) is a working excavation and museum on the site of an urban complex with a large metallurgical and astronomical center (occupied ca. 5000 BC-17th c. CE). The site occupies a volcanic hill and surrounding area.
The astronomical observatory predates all other known observatories in the ancient world – that is, observatories that geometrically divided the heavens into constellations and assigned them fixed positions and symbolic design. Until the discovery of Metsamor it had been widely accepted that the Babylonians were the first astronomers. The observatory at Metsamor predates the Babylonian kingdom by 2000 years, and contains the first recorded example of dividing the year into 12 sections. Using an early form of geometry, the inhabitants of Metsamor were able to create both a calendar and envision the curve of the earth.
According to the English astronomer and historian W. T. Olcott, the only place where all the animals depicted in the Zodiac were located together was prehistoric Armenia. Recently, researchers have posited the source for the Indo European language to the Armenian plateau, with dispersion of the language into Asia, the Balkans, the Greek mainland and Europe. The roots of most European languages (along with the Zodiac) are traced to this dispersion.
The discovery of the astronomical ‘observatory’ at Metsamor and the presence of engravings which have been speculatively called ‘zodiac creatures’ has given credence to the assertion that the ancient figures of the constellations were probably created by ancient peoples living in the Euphrates valley and near Mount Ararat in eastern Anatolia and Armenia.
Rick Ney, the author of , says of it: “Parsamian’s discovery at Metsamor, and the stones at Sissian give concrete credence to Maunder’s and Olkott’s theories, especially when coupled with ca. 4,000–3,000 BC stone carvings of zodiac figures on rocks on the Geghama Mountain Range in Armenia.”
About 4 km S of Geghhovit, on a hill E of the road where the Martuni and Dashtidzor rivers come together, is a Berdi Glukh cyclopean fort. The paved road passes Lernakert, then ascends (now unpaved) into the mountains toward the Selim Pass/Caravansaray and Yeghegnadzor. Just E of the road before the summit, a series of boulders have carved on them faint outline maps of the major constellations (39 57.33n x 045 14.10e), possibly dated to the 3rd millennium BC. Sev Sar, the mountain just East, also has important petroglyphs.
The Armenian calendar is the traditional calendar of Armenia. It was used in Old Armenia during the time before the arrival of Cjristianity. It is a solar calendar based on the same system as the ancient Egyptian model, having an invariant 365-day year with no leap year rule.
As a result, the correspondence between it and the Julian calendar, slowly changes over time (such as year 769 on AD 1320 January 1, year 770 on AD 1320 December 31, and year 1032 on AD 1582 October 27 = Gregorian November 6). Some references report that the first month of the year, , corresponds to the start of Spring in the northern hemisphere, but that was only true from the 9th through 10th centuries.
The Armenian calendar is a derivative of Zoroastrian changes to Egyptian dates. The first month is equivalent to the month (), however its first day falls on 4 so that the first of the five (or six) epagum days falls on Egyptian 27. This is in contrast to the Zoroastrian calendar where the first month begins on 6 because its epagum (Gatha days) begin on Egyptian 1 as of 388 BC.
The month is equal to Egyptian Phamenoth (7th month) as Egyptian midyear; but it is of biblical interest that Armenian midyear (Mareri/Deh) is Egyptian new year month Thoth as if to imply it was at one time the 7th month, in regard of the computation of the Jubilee, and the biblical explanation of how to begin the novel age following the entering into the promised land. Two cycles of 1460 years goes back to August 11, 2369 BC the year that is a given as the date for the start of the old calendar, during the reign of the semi-mythical patriarch of Armenia, Haik.
Prior to borrowing the Egyptian calendar, the ancient Armenians had a lunar calendar based on a lunation of 28 days before changing to a solar calendar based on 365 days; 12 months of 30 days and one interval period of 5 days. Each year began on Navasard (corresponding to our August 11), during the grape harvest, when the constellation Orion (Armenian “Haik”) became visible in the night sky. Each month and day was named, as was each hour of each day.
Together with these alien Zoroastrian, Egyptian, Julian, Gregorian, and ecclesiastical dating schemes, some Armenians still retain the old native calendar usage in which the new year begins at the spring equinox.
In the numbering scheme of this solar calendar, the year 1 works out to be 5818–5817 BCE. Hence March 20, 2013 CE marks the start of the Armenian year 7831, and the annual advances repeat one-to-one in tandem upon the spring equinox of each year: March 20, 2014 CE will mark the start of the Armenian year 7832, and so forth.
Egyptian astronomy begins in prehistoric times, in the Predynastic Period. In the 5th millennium BCE, the stone circles at Nabta Playa may have made use of astronomical alignments. By the time the historical Dynastic Period began in the 3rd millennium BCE, the 365 day period of the Egyptian calendar was already in use, and the observation of stars was important in determining the annual flooding of the Nile.
The Egyptian pyramids were carefully aligned towards the pole star, and the temple of Amun-Re at Karnak was aligned on the rising of the midwinter sun. Astronomy played a considerable part in fixing the dates of religious festivals and determining the hours of the night, and temple astrologers were especially adept at watching the stars and observing the conjunctions, phases, and risings of the Sun, Moon and planets.
In Ptolemaic Egypt, the Egyptian tradition merged with Greek astronomy and Babylonian astronomy, with the city of Alexandria in Lower Egypt becoming the centre of scientific activity across the Hellenistic world. Roman Egypt produced the greatest astronomer of the era, Ptolemy (90-168 CE). His works on astronomy, including the Almagest, became the most influential books in the history of Western astronomy.
Anania Shirakatsi (also known as Ananias of Shirak; 610–685 AD) was an Armenian mathematician, astronomer and geographer. Anania also authored Cosmography and the Calendar, a 48 chapter work that discusses astronomy, meteorology, and physical geography.
Shirakatsi described the world as “being like an egg with a spherical yolk (the globe) surrounded by a layer of white (the atmosphere) and covered with a hard shell (the sky).” He also believed “that the Milky Way is a mass of dense but faintly luminous stars and agreed with earlier philosophers that the moon was a dark body by nature whose only light was that which it reflected from the sun.”[
Following the Muslim conquest of Egypt, the region came to be dominated by Arabic culture and Islamic astronomy. The astronomer Ibn Yunus (c. 950-1009) observed the sun’s position for many years using a large astrolabe, and his observations on eclipses were still used centuries later. In 1006, Ali ibn Ridwan observed the SN 1006, a supernova regarded as the brightest stellar event in recorded history, and left the most detailed description of it.
In the 14th century, Najm al-Din al-Misri wrote a treatise describing over 100 different types of scientific and astronomical instruments, many of which he invented himself. In the 20th century, Farouk El-Baz from Egypt worked for NASA and was involved in the first Moon landings with the Apollo program, where he assisted in the planning of scientific explorations of the Moon.
The Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory (BAO) is the modern famous Armenian observatory founded in 1946 by the outstanding scientist Victor Ambartsumian. It was one of the world astronomical centres in 1950-s to 1970-s, and at present is the largest observatory in the Middle East area. Despite all the difficulties, the Armenian astronomers keep high international level of research and display various activities organizing international meetings and schools, preparing new young generation for the future research.
The Armenian Astronomical Society (ArAS) is an affiliated member of EAS. Armenia has its Virtual Observatory project (ArVO) as well. There are plans to organize astronomical tours to Armenia for making observations from various sites, including the ancient observatories. The future of astronomy in Armenia strongly depends on all of this activities and the proper attention both from state authorities and society.
Comments