Aratta was a semi legendary land known from Sumerian epics. It probably existed in the first half of third millennium BC.

 Aratta was a semi legendary land known from Sumerian epics. It probably existed in the first half of third millennium BC.

It's location has been debated for long time. Gamkrelidze and Ivanoff proposed an IE etymology for Aratta based on river terminology. Indeed a river Aratta is attested in Urmia basin in Iron Age. 2000 years after the legendary Aratta.

Despite this semantic match, other theories positing Aratta in eastern regions like Afghanistan or east Iran are also popular due to different arguments.

It's remarkable that Aratta is not only a land name in Sumerian but also a simple word. One meaning is heavy/glorious/important and the other meaning is tin.

Aratta meaning tin can be interpreted in two ways. Aratta was a land with rich tin mines. And Aratta was a place from where Sumerians were getting tin by trade or learned about the use of tin.

Tin was an important metal in Bronze Age. There were two techniques to create bronze from copper. One was by mixing with arsenic and another was with tin. Both types of bronze are found in Armenia during the Kura-Araxes period. Even more Armenia also had tin mines. But Central Asia also has tin mines. Tin bronze was also very popular in Europe.

So a lot off uncertainty existed about the origin of tin in Near East. A recent paper working with isotopes debunked the theory that most of tin in Levant, Greece and Anatolia are from Central Asia. They proposed a new origin in Europe.

But Aratta can't be in Europe. So if we rely on this argument then two options are possible. Either Aratta was a trading hub somewhere in Near East that was getting tin from Europe and reselling to Sumerians. Either Aratta was located in Armenia or it's vicinity in north Zagros where Kura-Araxes culture existed during that period. Two theories are not mutually incompatible. Isotope research on tin from historic Armenia can help to understand this question better.

And finally the word tin in Armenian "anag" (անագ) is related to Sumero-Akkadian-Hurrian word for tin and lead. Anna / annaki / anagi in those languages means also tin, featuring a possible long lasting trade contacts between Mesopotamia and Armenia.