Arame or Aramu () was the first known

king King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...

of the state of

Urartu Urartu was an Iron Age kingdom centered around the Armenian highlands between Lake Van, Lake Urmia, and Lake Sevan. The territory of the ancient kingdom of Urartu extended over the modern frontiers of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Armenia.Kleiss, Wo ...

. Living at the time of King

Shalmaneser III Shalmaneser III (''Šulmānu-ašarēdu'', "the god Shulmanu is pre-eminent") was king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 859 BC to 824 BC. His long reign was a constant series of campaigns against the eastern tribes, the Babylonians, the nations o ...

of the Neo Assyrian Empire (), Arame fought unsuccessfully against the Assyrian Empire. His capital at

Arzashkun Arzashkun or Arṣashkun was the capital of the early kingdom of Urartu in the 9th century BC, before Sarduri I moved it to Tushpa in 832 BC. Arzashkun had double walls and towers, but was captured by Shalmaneser III in the 850s BC. Name Arz ...

was captured by Shalmaneser. Sagunia, a previous capital, which was also captured by Shalamaneser, seems to have been located in the vicinity of

Lake Van Lake Van (; ; ) is the largest lake in Turkey. It lies in the Eastern Anatolia Region of Turkey in the provinces of Van Province, Van and Bitlis Province, Bitlis, in the Armenian highlands. It is a Salt lake, saline Soda lake, soda lake, receiv ...

Lake Urmia Lake Urmia is an endorheic salt lake in Iran. The lake is located between the provinces of East Azerbaijan and West Azerbaijan in Iran, and west of the southern portion of the Caspian Sea. At its greatest extent, it was the largest lake in th ...

. Subsequent Urartian rulers probably came from a different dynasty than Arame. Arame has been suggested as the prototype of both Aram (and, correspondingly the popular given name Aram) and

Ara the Beautiful Ara the Handsome (or the Beautiful, ) is a legendary Armenians, Armenian hero and king. He is the son of the legendary king Aram and a descendant of the Armenian patriarch Hayk. Scholars believe that Ara, Aram and Hayk were originally deities who ...

, two of the legendary but not historically attested forefathers of the

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian diaspora, Armenian communities around the ...

people. Khorenatsi's ''

History History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

'' (1.5) puts them six and seven generations after

Hayk Hayk (, ), also known as Hayk Nahapet (, , ), is the legendary patriarch and founder of the Armenian nation. His story is told in the ''History of Armenia'' attributed to the Armenian historian Movses Khorenatsi and in the ''Primary History'' ...

. It has been hypothesized that Aramu was a military leader of

Aramean The Arameans, or Aramaeans (; ; , ), were a tribal Semitic people in the ancient Near East, first documented in historical sources from the late 12th century BCE. Their homeland, often referred to as the land of Aram, originally covered ce ...

origin, the earliest recording of the name Aram referring to the Semitic speaking

people of the

Levant The Levant ( ) is the subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west, and forms the core of West Asia and the political term, Middle East, ''Middle East''. In its narrowest sense, which is in use toda ...

and southern

Anatolia Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

, appearing during the 13th century BC. Philologist Armen Petrosyan writes that Aramu might be identified with the legendary Armenian Aram, and proposes that Aramu may have been named after the Armenian or related deity *''Aram-.'' Petrosyan further writes, "Bearing in mind the Armenian etymologies of the names of the first king of Urartu Aramu and one of his royal cities Arṣašku, one may conclude that the first king of Urartu was an Armenian ruler and the Armenians inhabited Arṣašku." He is not to be confused with another king Aramu (also known as Adramu and Atarsamek), and Aramean king who ruled at the same time in Bit Agusi and also fought Shalemaneser III.

References

David Marshall Lang David Marshall Lang (6 May 1924 – 20 March 1991), was a Professor of Caucasian Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He was one of the most productive British scholars who specialized in Georgian, Armenian and ...

, ''Armenia: Cradle of Civilization'' (1970). Kings of Urartu 9th-century BC monarchs {{ANE-bio-stub

See also

References