From the Armenian Highlands to Scotland, Freddy Silva

The Treaty of Arbroath acknowledges the roots of Scottish people originating in the ancient Black Sea kingdom of Scythia, whose roots trace back to Armenia. Similar connections occur in Ireland where, ironically, much of Britain’s prehistory was recorded.

Eire’s early settlers came from the north, ostensibly from the western isles of Scotland, where they’d already established the region’s oldest megalithic culture.

Its kings and queens were originally known throughout the Armenian Highlands as Anu-Naki, and in Scythia as Tuadhe’d’Anu. As the name migrated through Denmark to Eire it changed to Tuatha de Danann. Its Armenian root, Tu at’or degh danude’r, translates practically as ‘those who embody the throne or office of the lord’.

This migration left a linguistic trail: Eire is the old Irish Ériu, which derives from Eriaini, an Armenian goddess whose name defined a settlement and a tribe on the eastern shore of Lake Van.

Ireland’s fabled Lough Éirne was likely named for the same goddess, especially as it connects to the island first settled by the founder of Ireland’s prehistory, Partholón.

His tribe appears on the scene from Scythia, settling on this island on the Éirne estuary called Inis Samhaoir (pronounced Samar), named for their place of origin, the river island settlement of Samara to the north of the Black Sea, where the tribe was already established by 5000 BC.

This date coincides with the radiocarbon date of a civilization layer around Ireland’s axis Mundi, the sacred hill Knocknarea, just to the south of Innis Samhhaoir.

Not surprisingly, the area surrounding the Gaelic Cnoc na Ré features Ireland’s oldest known dolmens, stone circles, and passage mounds, confirming the hill’s status as the earliest point of devotion.

In Armenian etymology, the phrase nakh-na-Ara means ‘that which precedes the god, Ara’. And it is not the only location whose name with Armenian roots: We find two principal Armenian deities, Mehr and his consort Ar-maghan, present in the county of Ar-magh; while Donegal, the most mysterious part of this land and former home of the Tuatha de Danann, has its root in dohm-egan, generally translating as ‘distinguished noble clan’.

By Freddy Silva

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