The Armenians called the highest two-headed mountain (5165 m.) of the Armenian Highlands Sis and Masis. Masis is also known as Ararat. Like many questions of Armenian history, the names of the Armenian sacred mountain Masis and Ararat have also interested researchers and raised many questions.
And there are many questions: why does this sacred mountain have two names – Masis and Ararat, which one is older?, what do the names Sis, Masis, and Ararat mean?, why and when was the mountain named Ararat?.
Let’s consider each of these questions and try to explain them. The names Sis and Masis are the oldest names of the mountain. Note that other mountain peaks of the Armenian highlands also bear names similar to Masis.
Thus, the mountain located north of Lake Van was called Neh-Masik (Sipan), the mountain located in Armenian Mesopotamia, in the southwest of the Armenian Highlands, in the Greek and Armenian oldest written sources is called Masios or Masion (now Tur-Abdin): Assyrian written sources for these mountains use the name – mountains Kashshiari.
From the Sumerian-Akkadian epic “Gilgamesh” is known a two-headed mountain called Masu or Mashu, behind which the sun rises and sets, and on which the ark of Utnapishti (prototype of Noah) stopped. Masu-Mashu is often identified with the mountains Masios-Masion.
There are numerous explanations and viewpoints about the origin of the names Sis and Masis. The oldest of them is the interpretation of M. Khorenatsi: in his work “History of Armenia” he writes that the name Masis came from the name of Aik’s great-grandson – Amasia (Aik, Aramanyak, Aramais, Amasia).
According to one viewpoint, the names Masis, Mashu-Masu mean “twins”, “paired mountains”, “twin mountains”. According to another common point of view, the name “Masis” comes from the Armenian word mas “part”, because the mountain consists of two parts, etc.
However, the majestic view of the mountain suggests otherwise. Sis and Masis with their appearance (lonely, two-headed) leave the impression as if they grew directly from Mother Earth and are firmly connected with the earth. In other cases, high peaks are not lonely and are not directly connected with mother earth. They are high peaks of mountain ranges.
The view of the mountain Masis (Sis, Ma-Sis) suggests that the name Sis can be associated with the meaning of the word “Sis”, “Maternal life-giving relic”. In many Indo-European languages, there are words close in meaning and pronunciation to the name Sis.
In the name “Ma-sis”, the component “ma” in the Armenian language means “to give birth”, that is – mother. Therefore, one can say that Masis /Ma-Sis/ means Mother Sis.
The Armenians, calling this two-headed mountain, located almost in the center of the Armenian highlands, Sis and Masis, saw in it the nourishing Mother Earth, the Land of relics, which with their high peaks receive the cosmic life-giving, life-stream, energy, and directly feed the connected with them Mother Earth and the country – Armenia.
It is known that the Sumerians descended to Lower Mesopotamia from the southern parts of the Armenian Highlands – taking with them cultural values created in their homeland, including many religious and mythological ones.
Undoubtedly, they knew about the two-headed sacred mountain of the Armenian Highlands named Sis and Masis, and in their new homeland when speaking about the flood, they called the two-headed mountain of the ark Masu-Mashu. By the way, the peak on which Utanapishti’s ark stopped was called Nisir, which has a distant similarity to the name Masis.
The two-headed mountain Masu-Mashu, from where, according to the Gilgamesh epic, the sun rises and sets, is also depicted on Akkadian seals. Moreover, they are depicted as seen from Mesopotamia, Masis on the left, and Sis on the right.
Armenians consider Masis a sacred, divine mountain, the top of which should not be touched by the foot of a mortal man. In Armenian beliefs, the mountain is guarded by dragons and vishapazuns (descendants of dragons). Recall the mention of M. Khorenatsi about how the Armenian king Artashes curses his son – Artavazd, saying:
If you go hunting
Up to the free, to Masis,
May the dragons seize you, take you away
Up to the free, to Masis10.
These dragons and vishapazuns, guarding Mount Masis, remind of the man-scorpions from the Gilgamesh epic, guarding the gates of the Masu-Mashu mountains and opening them only for the gods. In 1255, when the French traveler
W. Rubruck wanted to climb to the top of Ararat, an old Armenian persuaded him not to climb, saying; <no one … should climb Masis, she is the Mother of the World>11. For Armenians, even the snow of Mount Masis was considered sacred.
When in 1829, the Armenian writer Kh. Abovyan, together with the German scientist F. Parrot, climbed to the top of Masis, he brought snow from there in a bottle, which he kept as a sacred relic.
Thus, it can be unequivocally stated that the ancient name of the sacred Armenian mountain Masis /Ma-sis/ served as the basis for the names Neh-Masik, Masi-Masion, as well as Masu-Mashu located in different parts of the Armenian Highlands.
The sacred mountain is also referred to as Ararat, which is one of the oldest names of Armenia. The name Ararat (Arar-at) in its meaning and interpretation goes back to the times of creation and means <the place of creation, creation>12.
The name of Mount Ararat spread around the world through the Bible. According to the Old Testament, during the Great Flood, Noah’s ark stopped on the mountains of Ararat13. The original Bible in Hebrew uses the name Ararat kingdom (Urartu) for Armenia, and the mountain of Noah’s ark is called the Ararat mountains (mountain).
Later, in the early Middle Ages, Christian interpreters of the Bible identified the mountain of Noah’s ark, located in the country (mountains) of Ararat, with the mountain called Masis by Armenians and Ararat-Masis with the name Ararat was considered the mountain of Noah’s ark.
Thus, the name of the sacred mountain Masis, located almost in the center of the Armenian Highlands, is the oldest name given to the mountain by Armenians and means Mother-Nursing (Ma-Sis), and the name Ararat was given later – as a mountain located in the center of the country Ararat, where during the Great Flood found refuge and were saved the descendants of Noah. And around the mountain Ararat-Masis after the flood was laid the foundation of a new human civilization.
References
History of the Armenian People /in Armenian/, 1971, vol. 1, p. 21 Strabo, Geography, XI, 14/2 S. Yeremyan, Armenia according to <Ashkharatsuyts> /<Armenian Geography>, 1963, p. 65, 113 Anthology of the History of the Armenian People, 1982, Yerevan, 1981, pp. 15-16, 21 Poetry of the Ancient East /in Armenian/, Yerevan, 1982, p. 145 M. Khorenatsi, History of Armenia /in Armenian/, 1981, p. 50-51 N. Martirosyan, Historical-Philological Journal /ՊԲՀ/, 1961, 3-4, p. 107 Dictionary of the Armenian Language /Նոր բառգիրք Հայկազյան լեզվի/, p. 746 G. Acharyan, Dictionary of Armenian Names, /ՀԱԲ/, vol. 2, p. 471-472, V. Dal, Explanatory Dictionary, Moscow, 1956, p. 188 M. Khorenatsi, 1981, p. 233 Og. Akopian, Notes, vol 1, Yerevan, 1932, p. 18 A. Teryan, Armenia: The Cradle of Creation and Civilization /in Armenian/, Yerevan, 2002, p. 18-19 Book of Genesis, 4,5
The article was published in the book by Anzhela Teryan
Translated by Vigen Avetisyan
