InternationalAn inch from paradise
Armenia and its neighbors over the millennia
A cartographic exploration and adventure
by Gregory Lima
Published: Saturday November 17, 2007
This is a TO map drawn with the north at the left. The lower – southern – hemisphere is shown as being devoid of life but the northern – left – hemisphere is shown divided into the three continents of Asia (top), Europe (bottom left), and Africa (bottom right) in the manner of a TO map. Armenia is shown in northeast Asia. From Isidore’s (560–636 C.E.) Ethymologiae, originally written during the seventh century.
Yerevan - Under review
Rouben Galichian, Historic Maps of Armenia: The Cartographic Heritage. London: I. B. Tauris, 2004. 238 pages, 28 x 31 cm. Also published by Printinfo in Armenian and Russian in 2005.
Rouben Galichian, Countries South of the Caucasus in Medieval Mapping. Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan. In English, with an Armenian translation of the complete text in an accompanying booklet. London: Gomidas Institute and Yerevan: Printinfo Art Books, 2007, 208+92 pages, 28 x 22 cm. Distributed by Garod Books: info@garodbooks.com
In the oldest description of the world to survive the tumult of the barbarians of every age – the most ancient map yet discovered – a clay tablet dating from the sixth century BCE – the known world is divided into three parts, of which one part is Armenia.
At the center of this map is Babylon. Above Babylon, to the east is Assyria, and between Babylon and Assyria, above, is Armenia. The map includes the Armenian mountains that are the source of the River Euphrates, which is shown flowing down through Babylon into the marshlands and into the Persian Gulf. The record shows seven cities. One of these primeval cities is in Armenia.
This is the map at the start of an adventure in history that is Rouben Galichian's sober, scholarly, readable Historic Maps of Armenia – as handsome and absorbing a coffee-table book as you could want as your own.
In studying the maps the old adage comes to mind that the shortest pencil is more reliable than the longest memory. Jot it down if it must be remembered – but remember where you jotted it down – and pray that where you have put it is still standing tomorrow. Over time, only a part of our written records manage to survive, but of those that do some are priceless. Authentic maps that have survived are a vital fragment of the human heritage, part of the recovered record made with pointed rocks, styli, pencils, or pens that over the millennia have preserved the memory of humankind.
Rouben Galichian has had a lifelong passion for maps, collecting maps and consulting map repositories the world over for the cartographic heritage of the earth as measured and depicted over successive ages. "They constitute vital and intricate elements at the heart of serious history, science, and international trade," he explained. Within his studies of more than 30 years, he has focused with a particularly sharp eye on the region of which Armenia is a part.
His latest publication, Countries South of the Caucasus in Medieval Maps: Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan, was recently launched in the main hall of Yerevan's hallowed repository of manuscripts, the Matenadaran, where we sat over an open copy of the book. Seven maps from its collection are included.
The stated purpose of this latest publication is to acquaint interested readers with historical records of the region as the European Union steadily expands its borders eastward to include some of the ex-Soviet Union countries and possibly Turkey, with over 97 percent of territory in what is geographically known as Asia Minor.
Should Turkey succeed in joining, the European Union on its southeast will share common borders with Syria, Iraq, Iran, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia.
It is timely, he said, to acquaint the general public in Europe and elsewhere with the region as revealed in the maps that have survived the ages. They tell a story often more wonderful in terms of fantasies than many of us may realize. At the same time, on a factual basis, the maps give a historical account that is at sharp variance with the official histories of certain so-called academics and historians.
Rouben Galichian draws three major conclusions from this extensive collection of maps coming from the medieval Latin Christian, Byzantine, Islamic, Syriac, and Armenian traditions that he brought together from relevant manuscripts in the world's libraries and museums:
1. In antiquity, before what is called the Common Era, the country now known as Georgia included the territories then known as Colchis-Imeritia-Abkhazia, Kartli-Iberia, and Mingrelia. The union of these territories during the eleventh to twelfth centuries created what we know as Georgia. The name Georgia appears on maps of the thirteenth century, and Georgia now occupies more or less the same territory as it did during the middle ages.
2. In medieval times the territory occupied by today's Republic of Azerbaijan was called Albania (Aran in Persian, and Aghvank in Armenian). This Caucasian Albania was a Christian country. It became Christian in the fourth century, in the same general period as Armenia, and for centuries was well represented as one of the brotherhood of Christian communities in Jerusalem. It disappeared over the ninth to tenth centuries. Much later the territories were divided into the khanates of Daghestan, Derbend, Shirwan, Talish, and others. "As a result of political scheming, the name 'Azerbaijan,' which for over two millennia belonged to the northwestern Iranian province across the river Araks was given this territory. This occurred in 1918," he said. Today's Azerbaijan occupies the territory of Albania with additional adjoining areas. The renaming of the old Albania as Azerbaijan, Galchian said, "was a ploy by the Pan-Turkic movements to unite the areas from Turkey to Central Asia as a continuous belt of Turkic-speaking tribes and separate the real Azerbaijan from Iran."
3. The geographical location of Armenia has always been shown as being south of Georgia and Albania. It extended across the Araks River southwestward, past Lake Van, and as far as the Armenian Plateau or Highlands extends. "This is where the indigenous Armenians lived in the first millennium before the Common Era until 1915. Armenia lost its independence in the eleventh century and Western Armenia was successively ruled by the Seljuks, Mongols, and Ottomans, who in 1915 ethnically cleansed the territory of its indigenous people." The result was that Armenia, which for some 2,600 years occupied the territory of the Armenian plateau, is now wedged between Iran, Turkey, Georgia, and Azerbaijan, occupying about 10 percent of what historically was known as Armenia.
