The exploration of ancient Near Eastern civilizations and the origins of indigenous highland cultures holds immense significance for understanding the linguistic and cultural tapestry of the South Caucasus. When the late Dr. Artak Movsisyan—distinguished Professor of History at Yerevan State University and Senior Researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia—delivered his landmark lecture series at the Glendale Central Library auditorium in Southern California, he presented a transformative scholarly paradigm. Moving beyond simplified historical conventions, Prof. Movsisyan illuminated the profound antiquity of Armenian written culture, the civilizational continuity of the Kingdom of Van (Urartu), and the intellectual revolution sparked by St. Mesrop Mashtots in the fifth century.
The Glendale Lecture Series: Connecting Diaspora with Homeland Scholarship
Organized under the auspices of Artists for Peace, Prof. Movsisyan's symposium drew hundreds of scholars, university students, and community members to Glendale. The two-day lecture series addressed two pivotal thematic pillars of Armenian historiography: first, 'The Issue of the Origins of the Armenian People' and 'The Ethnic Character of the Van Kingdom of Ararat-Urartu'; second, 'The Problem of the Islamicized Armenians' and 'Mesrop Mashtots & the Renaissance of the Armenian Written Word.'
For independent community broadcasters and documentary filmmakers, events of this caliber represent vital cultural crossroads. Rather than viewing history as an abstract academic discipline confined to university archives in Yerevan, Prof. Movsisyan's public lectures demonstrated how rigorous epigraphic decipherment, archaeological stratigraphy, and comparative linguistics directly inform modern national identity, diaspora resilience, and historical memory.
Pre-Mashtotsian Epigraphy: Writing in the Armenian Highlands Before 405 AD
One of Prof. Movsisyan's most influential scholarly contributions—detailed extensively in his foundational monograph The Writing Culture of Pre-Christian Armenia—was challenging the conventional notion that the Armenian Highlands existed in complete illiteracy prior to the invention of the Armenian alphabet in 405 AD.
Through decades of meticulous fieldwork, Movsisyan compiled and analyzed over 1,500 distinct hieroglyphic inscriptions carved into stone, pottery, bronze weapons, and clay tablets discovered across historic Armenia, particularly surrounding Lake Van, Armavir, and the fortress citadels of Erebuni and Teishebaini. While royal administrative decrees of the Urartian kings (such as Menua, Argishti I, and Sarduri II) were predominantly recorded in Assyrian-derived cuneiform, domestic economic records, religious shrines, and ceramic storage vessels (karases) routinely bore an indigenous pictographic and linear hieroglyphic script.
Movsisyan posited that an indigenous ideographic writing tradition flourished in the Armenian Highlands as early as the late second millennium BCE, preserved within pagan temple priesthoods and local administrative centers. This epigraphic heritage explains historical accounts recorded by early Armenian historians—such as Movses Khorenatsi and Koriun—who noted that King Vramshapuh and Catholicos Sahak Partev were actively searching for ancient Armenian letterforms (the enigmatic 'Danielian scripts') before dispatching Mesrop Mashtots on his historic linguistic expedition.
The Kingdom of Van (Urartu) and Autochthonous Armenian Ethnogenesis
A second centerpiece of Movsisyan's scholarship addressed the relationship between the Iron Age state of Urartu (the biblical Kingdom of Ararat, natively known as Biainili) and the formation of the Armenian nation. Rejecting obsolete 19th-century migrationist theories that characterized Armenians as late-arriving Balkan newcomers, Movsisyan synthesized cutting-edge archaeological, toponymic, and genetic evidence to demonstrate that the Armenian ethnos is autochthonous—native and continuous—to the Armenian Highlands.
Movsisyan demonstrated that the multi-tribal federation comprising the Kingdom of Van absorbed and synthesized ancient highland populations, including the Hurrian, Luwian, and proto-Armenian dialect speakers who had inhabited the plateau since the Bronze Age cultures of Kura-Araxes and Trialeti. The geographic names, pantheon deities, agricultural irrigation canals (such as the 70-kilometer Menua Canal still operating today), and cyclopean stone masonry of Urartu formed the direct infrastructural and cultural foundation upon which the Orontid (Yervanduni) and Artaxiad (Artashesian) Armenian kingdoms immediately arose.
| Historical Era | Epigraphic / Writing System | Primary Medium & Artifacts | Historiographical Significance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bronze Age (Aratta & Early Highlands) | Pictographic symbols, petroglyphs | Rock art carvings (Ughtasar, Syunik), ceramic seals | Earliest indigenous symbolic communication; astronomical and religious motifs |
| Kingdom of Van / Urartu (9th–6th c. BCE) | Urartian hieroglyphics & regional cuneiform | Basalt monument stelae, bronze shields, ceramic storage karases | Over 1,500 indigenous hieroglyphic inscriptions; royal annals of Argishti and Menua |
| Hellenistic Armenia (Artaxiad Era) | Aramaic, Greek, and pagan ideograms | Artaxias boundary stones, royal coinage of Tigranes the Great | Bilingual royal administration; documented presence of pre-Christian temple scripts |
| The Golden Age (405 AD – Present) | Mashtotsian Armenian Alphabet (36 letters) | Parchment manuscripts, illuminated gospels, stone khachkars | Perfect phonetic fidelity; translation of Holy Scriptures; birth of classical historiography |
Mesrop Mashtots and the Voskedar (Golden Age) Renaissance
While contextualizing pre-Christian writing, Prof. Movsisyan simultaneously underscored the transcendent intellectual genius of St. Mesrop Mashtots. When Mashtots created the 36-letter Armenian alphabet in 405 AD, he did not merely copy foreign scripts; he conducted an exhaustive phonetic analysis of fifth-century Classical Armenian (Grabar).
Unlike neighboring Semitic abjads that omitted vowels, or the Greek alphabet which lacked characters for Armenian's complex affricate and consonant clusters (such as dz, ts, ch, and gh), Mashtots engineered an elegant, one-to-one phonetic system. Every distinct phoneme in the spoken language received a dedicated graphic letterform. This phonetic perfection allowed the immediate translation of the Holy Bible—hailed by European linguists as the 'Queen of Translations' (T’argmanut’yants’ T’aguhin)—and catalyzed the Voskedar (the Golden Age), sparking a literary renaissance that produced enduring philosophical, scientific, and historical chronicles by scholars such as Eznik of Kolb, Yeghishe, and Movses Khorenatsi.
The Living Legacy: Academic Popularization and Documentaries
Beyond his rigorous academic teaching at Yerevan State University, Prof. Artak Movsisyan was an impassioned popularizer of history. Recognizing the power of visual broadcast media, he authored educational history curricula and served as historical director and scriptwriter for landmark documentary films, including Tigran the Great: The Patriotic King, The Capital Cities of Armenia, and From Rock Carvings to the Alphabet.
His untimely passing in 2020 at the age of 50 was a profound loss to historical scholarship. Yet, his scholarly works, recorded lectures, and documentary archives continue to educate and inspire new generations. By recording, preserving, and reflecting upon symposia like his Glendale lecture series, independent cultural programs ensure that profound scholarly wisdom remains accessible to diaspora communities worldwide, safeguarding the enduring truth of ancient Armenian civilization.