6. The Egypto-Aramaic. — This is found on some ancient Egyptian monuments, proceeding probably* from .lews who had come from Palestine to Babylonia. Among these is the famous Carpentras inscription, so called from its present location in the south of France : this, Gesenius thinks, is the production of a Syrian from the Seleucidinian empire residing in Egypt; but this is less probable than that it is the production of a Jew inclining to the Egyptian worship. Some MSS. on papyrus also belong to this head (see Gesenius, Monumenta Phan. i, £20-245). The language is Ara-
ARAMAIC VERSIONS
357
ARARAT
maic, chiefly resembling the Chaldee, but with a He- brew infusion Kitto, s. v.
Aramaic Versions. See Syriac Versions; Targum.
A'ramitess (Heb. Arammiyah' ', ilJEHSt, Sept. ?/ 2up«, 1 Chron. vii, 14), a female Syrian, as the word is elsewhere rendered. See Aram.
A'ram-nahara'im (Heb. Aram' Nahara'yim, t"1"!!"^ -^X, Sept. M£<ro7rora/u'a Supiar, Psa. lx, title), the region between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, i. e. Mesopotamia, as it is elsewhere rendered. See Aram.
Aram-Zobah. See Aram.
A'ran (Heb. Aran', "pX, wild goat ; Sept. Apciv, v. r. 'Appdv), the second named of the two sons of Di- shan, and grandson of Seir the Horite (Gen. xxxvi, 28 ; 1 Chron. i, 42). B.C. cir. 1963.
Ar'arat (Heb. Ararat', BTIX, accord, to Bohlen and Benfey from Sanscrit aryavarta, "sacred land;" Sept. 'Aoaour; v. r. in 2 Kings xix, 37, 'ApapdS; in Isa. xxxvii, 38, 'Apptvia ; v. r. in Jer. li, 27, 'ApapiS, 'ApaaeSr, etc.), occurs nowhere in Scripture as the name of a mountain, but only as the name of a coun- try, upon the "mountains" of which the ark rested during the subsidence of the flood (Gen. viii, 4). In 2 Kings xix, 37; Isa. xxxvii, 38 (in both which it is rendered "Armenia"), it is spoken of as the country ■whither the sons of Sennacherib, king of Assyria, fled, after they had murdered their father. The apocryphal book of Tobit (i, 21) says it was eig ra opi] 'ApapdQ, "to the mountains of Ararath." This points to a ter- ritory which did not form part of the immediate do- minion of Assyria, and yet might not be far off from it. The description is quite applicable to Armenia, and the tradition of that country bears that Sennach- erib's sons wrere kindly received by King Paroyr, who allotted them portions of land bordering on Assyria, and that in course of time their posterity also estab- lished an independent kingdom, called Vaspurakan (Advall's Transl. of Chamich's Hist, of Armenia, i, 33, 34). The only other Scripture text where the word occurs (Jer. li, 27) mentions Ararat, along with Minni and Ashkenaz, as kingdoms summoned to arm them- selves against Babylon. In the parallel place in Isa. xiii, 2-4, the invaders of Babylonia are described as "issuing from the mountains;" and if by Mimni we understand the Minyas in Armenia, mentioned by Nicholas of Damascus (Josephus, Ant. i, 3, 6), and by Ashkenaz some country on the Euxine Sea, which may have had its original name, Axenos, from Ashkenaz, a
son of Gomer, the progenitor of the Cimmerians (Gen. x, 2, 3), then we arrive at the same conclusion, viz. that Ararat was a mountainous region north of As, syria, and in all probability in Armenia. In Ezek. xxxviii, G, we find Togarmah, another part of Arme- nia, connected with Gomer, and in Ezek. xxvii. 14, with Meshech and Tubal, all tribes of the north. With this agree the traditions of the Jewish and Chris- tian churches (Josephus, Ant. i, 3, 5; Euseb. J'mp. Evang. ix, 12, 19; Jerome on Isa. 1. c), and likewise the accounts of the native Armenian writers, who in- form us that Ararad was the name of one of the an- cient provinces of their country, supposed to corre- spond to the modern pachalics of Kars and Bayazid, and part of Kurdistan. According to the tradition preserved in Moses of Chorene (in his Histor. A num. p. 361, ed. Winston, Lond. 173G), the name of Ararat was derived from Aral, the eighth of the native princes, who was killed in a battle with the Babylonians about B.C. 1750 ; in memory of which the whole province was called A ray-iarat, i. e. the ruin of Arai. (See Mi- chaelis, Suppl. i, 130 sq. ; Tuch, Gen. p. 170 sq.) Eev. E. Smith, who made an exploring tour in Persia and Armenia in 1830 and 1831, remarks in the Biblical Repository, 1832, p. 202, "The name of Ararat occurs but twice in the Old Testament (Gen. viii, 1, and Jer. li, 27), and both times as the name of a country, which in the last passage is said to have a king. It is well known that this was the name of one of the fif- teen provinces of Armenia. It was situated nearly in the centre of the kingdom ; was very extensive, reaching from a point above seven or eight miles east of the modern Erzroom, to within thirty or forty miles of Nakhchewan ; yielded to none in fertility, being watered from one extremity to the other by the Ar- axes, which divided it into two nearly equal parts; and contained some eight or ten cities, which were successively the residences of the kings, princes, or governors of Armenia from the commencement of its political existence, about 2000 years B.C. according to Armenian tradition, until the extinction of the Pagra- tian dynasty, about the middle of the eleventh centu- ry ; with the exception of about 230 years at the com- mencement of the Arsacian dynasty, when Nisibis and Oria were the capitals. It is therefore not unnatural that this name should be substituted for that of the whole kingdom, and thus become known to foreign nations, and that the king of Armenia should be call- ed the king of Ararat." See Cuneiform Inscrip- tions.