Sacred Highlands, The
Armenia in the Spiritual Geography of the Ancient Near East

The present study does not have any ambitious pretensions; rather it is an attempt to partially answer two questions relating to our identity: who were we to begin with and where do we come from? How is our country portrayed in sacred and mythological world view of nations of the ancient world, some of whom have disappeared from the world scene, what was their perspective, who were our ancestors, and what role did they play in the ancient world, did they have a mission, and if so, what was it? These are questions whose answers our people have lost through the vicissitudes of our history, but fortunately for us, relevant information has been preserved in the written sources of many ancient peoples, uncovered in the past two centuries. This book is the first attempt to compile these ancient passages describing Armenia, as preserved in one of the cradles of world civilization, the Near East. The citations are presented here with meticulous care, strictly without any additions or omissions. The other key principle has been to reconstitute the ancient image of Armenia, guided first and foremost by foreign sources and then only by looking at Armenian sources (in order to avoid any national bias). At the same time, this being the first attempt at such an undertaking, we have no pretensions of being the last word on this topic and expect that in the future these findings will be augmented with new information.