Tork Angegh: Storm, Stone, and the Oldest Face of the Armenian Pantheon
Long before Armenia’s kings raised churches over pagan sanctuaries, before Hellenism folded Vahagn into Herakles and Anahit into Artemis, the Armenian Highland […]
The Goat on the Armenian Highland: A Symbol Older Than Writing
Introduction Long before Urartian kings inscribed their names in cuneiform on the cliffs of Van, and long before Armenian stonemasons carved crosses […]
“Summon Against Her the Kingdoms of Ararat”: Urartu-Armenia in the Prophecy Against Babylon
A Coalition Beneath the Mountain Among the oracles of judgment collected in the Book of Jeremiah, one verse names a highland kingdom […]
The Tower That Never Left Us: From the Susi Shrine of Ancient Van to the Obelisk Above the Yerevan Cascade
If you have ever climbed the Cascade in Yerevan and looked up at the tall, tapering stele crowned with stone “wings” at […]
Hayravank Monastery: The “Father Monastery” of Lake Sevan and the Legend of the Doves
On a rocky promontory above the southwestern shore of Lake Sevan, at an elevation of nearly 1,900 meters, stands one of Armenia’s […]
Scythian Ceremonial Swords and the Art of the Van Kingdom (Urartu)
Among the most arresting objects to survive from the Early Iron Age Near East are gold-sheathed ceremonial short swords — akinakai — […]
Abandoned by an Ally: The French Armenian Legion in Cilicia and the Road to the Smyrna Catastrophe
How a promise made to genocide survivors was traded away for peace with Ankara — and how the same pattern of Great […]
The Vilgort Cup: A Silver Masterpiece of Cilician Armenia (c. 1150–1159 A.D.)
A Fragment That Traveled Across Continents The gilt-silver medallion shown above — two richly dressed figures flanked by lions, hares, and birds, […]
Hannibal and Artaxias the Great: The Carthaginian General Who Helped Build the “Armenian Carthage”
Few episodes in ancient Armenian history capture the imagination quite like the tradition that Hannibal Barca — Rome’s most feared enemy — […]
The Priestess of the Kingdom of Van: A 9th-Century BC Bronze Figurine in the British Museum
Five angles of one small bronze figure — and what emerges is not an abstract “Near Eastern idol” but a specific individual: […]