The list of rulers and kings of Armenia Minor ( or Lesser Armenia ) by Aryak Movsisyan and Lianna Karapetyan.

 The list of rulers and kings of Armenia Minor ( or Lesser Armenia ) by Aryak Movsisyan and Lianna Karapetyan. The second map is from Hewsen according Wikipedia.

The list is incomplete. During the rule of Mithridates Eupator ( who had also the throne name Artashes ) the two neighbouring kingdoms of Pontus and Lesser Armenia merged in to one kingdom. A powerful kingdom formed which conquered quite large territories. Nevertheless Romans defeated Mithridates Eupator and after that Lesser Armenia became a client state of Rome who was nominating the rulers. At some point it was incorporated in to Roman empire and became a province.

The most interesting name in this list is the Oromanes. Movsisyan compares this name with the patriarch Aramanyak. The existence of this name can be an indirect evidence that the Armenian name Aram ( old version Aramu ) is derived from an early form of Urumu. And it's a name derived from a major tribe. Cuneiform Urumu was almost certainly pronounced as Oromo which by vowel reduction can become Aramo and Aram. The name Oromanes/Oromana can be another derivative from this root.

Another interesting thing to note is the initial geography of Pontic kingdom. It formed on the lands inhabited by Kashkians. So despite being a Hellenistic kingdom we can say that by ethnicity it formed on ancient Kashkian basis.

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Ancient Gordion samples are from two periods

 Ancient Gordion samples are from two periods. The first two samples are circa 650bc which would be immediately after the fall of Phrygian kingdom. The rest are from Hellenistic period ~180bc.

Unfortunately we don't have Bronze Age samples from Gordion so I use Kaman Kakehoyuk as reference which can affect the result.

Anyway Gordion samples are mostly made with Anatolia Bronze Age. On top of that they have ancestry from Europe which we can attribute mainly to Phrygians. But also to Greeks, Thracians and Galatians. Interestingly the Bryges the Proto Phrygians were probably close to Myceneans.Which make sense from linguistic point of view.

Gordion samples also have extra ancestry from Van Urartu and Samsun_Anc_B. Samsun_B is a very CHG shifted sample which I use as a proxy for potential Kashkian migrations that occur in LBA/EIA. Notice with a genuine LBA/EIA sample from North East of Turkey this results can change. As for Van_Urartu it's a proxy reference for Armenians.

Those extra eastern ancestries can be attributed to Kashkians whose descendants can be Tibarens and Mossinoici. To Mushki who founded Mazhaka (Cesaria) and Armenians who created Lesser Armenia in Anatolia around 330bc. The impact from East is significant in some samples which could mean that archaeologic findings of grooved ware in Gordion were not random events but a result of migrations. This also make plausible the theory that Phrygian were labeled Mushki in cuneiform texts because of substantial Mushki presence in their kingdom.

The last two IA samples from Anatolia are from an older paper. One of them is obviously a Cimmerian, though some suggested that it could be an Ottoman era sample. While the other was found in Galatian context. Unfortunately non of them is radiocarbon dated.

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1818

A forgotten page of Armenian history

It's not directly related to the ethnogenesis of Armenians but given that Christianity became an important part of Armenian identity it is important to know.
In 312 the tetrarch Maximinus Daza (or Daia) emperor of Eastern regions of Rome attacked Armenia. He was a fervent pagan and antichristian. In most likelihood he wanted to punish Armenia for adopting Christianity in 301. He lost the campaign and the next year he lost the intra roman struggle for power and died in Tarsus (modern Turkey). In 313 emperors Constantine and Licinius decided to stop the persecution of Christians and allowed them freedom of religious beliefs.
This is important to know because many Armenians assume that Christianity was imported to Armenia by Roman state.

 

Interesting lexical parallels between Armenian and Uralic languages from Jahukyan's book.

 Interesting lexical parallels between Armenian and Uralic languages from Jahukyan's book.

Those words are not explained via Iranian or any other intermediation.

The proto Uralic *waski ( a metallic term ) has been linked with the Tocharian word for gold *wi̯äsā.

Compare the Armenian oski (gold ոսկի).

P'or (փոր) is another interesting term. Widespread in Armenian toponyms, especially in the North. Meaning valley, but also hole, to dig and abdomen.

Some of those words do have IE etymology but some do not have.

Armenian կեչի (kečʿi, “birch”) compared with proto Finnic *kaska. See the link in the comments.

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1919

The Bronze Age samples from Sirnak in SE Turkey ( 3000-2700bc ) are remarkable

 The Bronze Age samples from Sirnak in SE Turkey ( 3000-2700bc ) are remarkable. Genome wide they are close to all those sites were Hurro-Urartian languages were attested. Notice it's closest pop is the Dinkha tepe BIA A which is related to Khabur ware in Iran. Khabur ware is usually linked with Hurrians.

It's age is close to hypothetic split of Hurrian and Urartian which might have occur before 2500bc. So are we dealing we a population that we can label as Proto Hurro-Urartian?

Quite possible. Except that the archaeologic description of this burial is not labeled as Kur-Araxian despite the fact that it is contemporary to Kur-Araxian culture. Most of this samples come from jar burials which was a prominent feature of preceding Chalcolithic cultures all over historic Armenia and neighbouring regions.

As You can see that Sirnak BA is different from contemporary Kur-Araxian site in Talin by excess of Levantine ancestry and lack of CHG. This result seriously decrease the chance that Kur-Arax was founded by Proto Hurro-Urartian people. Kur-Araxian Culture (KAC) almost certainly formed in South Caucasus in CHG shifted populations. Yet this Sirnak samples lacks them. Which mean that they don't descend from KAC.

Nevertheless it is possible that there are some other true Kur-Araxian sites near Sirnak that will yield some CHG shifted samples, or at last will show a trail of migration from South Caucasus. We need more samples from that region but at this stage it seems that HU descend from mountains contingent to Northern Mesopotamia.

Below are the Y dna from Sirnak. Many of this Y dna are found in modern Armenians.

Chalcholithic

A. https://www.yfull.com/tree/G-Z6484/

B. https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FT184963/

Bronze Age

https://www.yfull.com/tree/T-L131/

https://www.yfull.com/tree/E-M34/

https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-Z447/

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1818