Literature. — Rpnan, HUtoire ginimU et fysteme compari dfs Lnngut-^ s^mititpies (1863); Miltlieihingen aus <if'n orieutiilisch-'n Saminlungen, pt. xi., Au^grahuiigfn in Serulnclnrli i. nsita); Baethgeu, Beitrdgg zur semitisdten lieligiotisgesckifhte (ISSS).
A. H. Savce. ARAM (c-ix).— 1. A grandson of Nahor (Gn 22-'). 2. An Asherite (1 Ch 7"). 3. AV of Mt 1», Lk 3^. See Arni, Ram.
ARAMAIC VERSIONS.— See Taroums.
ARAMITESS (■tsik, Xipa, Svra), a feminine form which occurs in both AV and RV of 1 Ch 7", for the elsewhere frequent term Syrian.
ARAM MAACAH.— 1 Ch 19". The more southerly part of Syria. See Aram.
ARAM-NAHARAIM, ARAM-REHOB, and ARAM- ZOBAH.— See Aram.
ARAN (n!<, Sam. pn). — Son of Dishan the Horite (Gn 36*, 1 Ch 1*=), a descendant of Esau. The name denotes ' a wild goat,' and Dishan ' an antelope ' or ' gazelle ' ; while Seir the ancestor is 'the he-goat.' On the subject of Totem-clans in the Bible, see Jacobs' Biblical ArcluEology (1894), pp. 64-103, and Robertson Smith on ' Animal Worship and Animal Tribes among the Ancient Arabs and in OT ' (Joum. of Philology, No. 17, vol. ix., 1880). H. E. RVLE.
ARARA"r (D-ry*, 'Ap^fi-Io).— The Biblical A. is the As.syrian Ur.ardhu (Urasdhu in the Persian period), the name given to the kingdom which hail its centre on the shores of Lake Van. The name seems to be connected with Urdhfl, which a cuneiform lexical tablet (WAI ii. 486, 13) ex- plains as ' Highlands' (7'i7/a),* and whicli appears as Urdlies in an inscription of the native king S.ar-duris n. , who describes it as in the neigh- bourhood of Lake Erivan. In Herodotus (in. 94) the word takes the form of Alarodians. The cuneiform writing of Assyria was borrowed by the inhabitants of the country in the 9tli cent. B.C., and we leam from the inscriptions composed in it that the native name of the kingdom was ISiainas or Bianas, the Byana of Ptolemy, now Van. The o;i])ital of the kingdom, now rcnre- sented by the modem city of Van, was called Dliusp.os ; this gave it« name to the district tenned TlKxpitis in cla.ssical geography, now Tosp. It w.as upon ' the mountains of A.' that the ark rested (Gn 8*), and in Jer 51" A. is associatecl
• ThlB Is the expIanatloQ hlthorto given by AsiiyriotojjiHt*. But I bcllove that thi> tnin etjilanntinn is dltli'rciit. L'nihfl or Animt was rlennU"! by an tileo«mi)h, which uanally repreatint^vi Accad in Biiiiyli'nlan, and rilgnifled 'a mound' or ' tol,' in AHsyrlan tUlu, b<TaiiBfl Tilla tiiippenod to Ite the naiue c< a r-lty in Ararat witti whicli the Aa.syriana wore Arquaintc<l In parly tiinctt. It la rallfd Tola by AaMUr-nazir-pal. and la RttU known aa Tillob at the Junction of the ^ert and tha TlKrifl.
140
ARAKAT
AKAKAT
with Minni and Ashkenaz. Minni, in fact, called Manna or Minnft in Assyrian, Mana in tlie \'annic texts, adjoined Ararat on the E., being separated from it ny the Kotur range, and Ashkena^ is probably the Asguza of the Assyr. monuments, which was situated in the same neighbourhood.
The name of Armenia, written Armina in Old Persian, Kharminuya in Amardian, first appears in the cuneiform inscriptions of Darius Hystaspis, but the origin of it is quite unknown. It may be connected with the Vannic word amuxni-lis, ' a stfele,' or with Arman ('the land of the Aram- seans ' ?), an Aramaean district south of Lake Van. Geographically, however, Armenia corresponds with Ararat. The supreme god of A. was Khaldis, who was worshipped under a variety of forms, and from whom the inhabitants of the country took the name of ' people of Khaldis.' From this was derived the name of Khalda?i or Khaldeans, assigned by classical geographers to the Armenian population who bordered on Pontus, and which was still preserved as late as the fifteenth century in the name of Khaldia applied to Lazistan (BelcK in ZeitschriftfurAssyridlogic, ix. 1, p. 89).
The kingdom of Biainas or Ararat was originally bounded on the north by the Araxes, and although some of its kings made conquests still furtlier north, it never seems to have comprised the Mount Ararat of modem times. This is still called Massis by the Armenians themselves, and the extension to it of the name of Ararat is of comparatively modem date. Its great height, the larger of its two peaks being 17,000 feet above the Ie\el of the sea, while the smaller peak, 7 miles distant, is 13,000 feet above the sea-level, has doubtless had much to do mtb the belief that it was the spot on which the ark rested. Arghuri, the only village which stood on its slopes, is even pointed out as the spot on which Noah planted his vineyard. It was first ascended by Parrot in 1829, and the ascent has since been achieved by Bryce and others.
The original site of the resting-place of the ark lay towards the south of Ararat in the Kurdish mountains, which divide Armenia from Mesopotamia and Kurdistan. According to the Bab. account of the Deluge, the ' sliip ' of Xisuthros, the Chaldean Noah, rested on the peak of ' the mountain of Nizir,' which lay E. of Assyria, between 35° and 36° N. lat. Similarly, Berosus the Chaldsean historian fixed the spot in ' the mountain of the Kordyieans ' or Kurds (Jos. Ant. I. iii. 6), and the Syriac version replaces Ararat by ^fardu in Gn 8*. Nicolaus Damascenus also stated that the ark had rested on ' a great mountain in Armenia, beyond Minyas, called Barw' (Jos. Ant. I. iii. 6). Minyas is Minni, and Baris is more accurately given as Lubar in the Book of Jubilees (ch. v.). Lubar was the boundary between Armenia and Kurdistan (Epiphanius, Adv. Hcer. i. 5). The Jebel Judi is still regarded by the Kurds as the scene of the descent from the ark. It would seem, therefore, that the spot has been successively shifted from the mountain of Nizir (possibly Rowandiz) in the east, to Jebel Judi or Lubar, and then to the modem Mount Ararat in the far north.