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| Greater
Armenia as described in the beginning of 7th century, Moutafian
& van Lauwe, Atlas historique de l'Arménie, Paris 2001, p. 13 |
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| This
is a cartographic reconstruction of a literary description made
presumably by Anania of Shirak, an Armenian scholar who lived in the
7th century. It appears that ancient Armenia was a federation of semi-independent principalities, each of them partially vassal to one of the neighbouring empires. Moreover, the above description doesn't make a clear difference between political and geographic regions. In spite of this, the extent of the country shown here is often presented as the "Historic Armenia". The National History Museum of Erevan even has a fresco with a similar map in its main hall. Although it is erroneous to deny the historical reality of a large country called Armenia, we must recognize that its existence was ancient and short-lived. On the other hand, the superimposition of this map with the next one (Kurds) could be contradictory. |
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