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Concept
Suren Ayvazyan
Summary
Suren M. Ayvazyan (4 August 1933 – 11 September 2009) was an Armenian geologist and public figure. He is the author of several works on linguistics and the history of Armenia.
In 1960 Ayvazyan met Russian archaeologist Boris Piotrovsky, who participated in the excavations of the ancient Urartian city of Teishebaini. Ayvazyan discussed with Piotrovsky whether the mythological ancient Armenia described by Movses Khorenatsi was real. Boris Piotrovsky said to him, "As a geologist, you know that no natural process leaves no evidence. If, as you argue, Movses Khorenatsi's oldest Armenia is there, please show me an archaeological site in Armenia that confirms it."
Ayvazyan chose as example an ancient monument of the Bronze Age, Metsamor, and published a work to demonstrate its relationship with Armenia, where he made a false description of coins with alleged Hayasan characters. He ascribed them to the 19th century BC and provided his own 'translation'. After checking in the Department of Numismatics of the Historical Museum of Armenia in 1968, he found that these coins were issued by the Atabeg dynasty of Azerbaijan in the period 1133–1225).
In the same article, Ayvazyan described the Hayasian inscription found on the rocks of Metsamor, which, after inspection conducted in 1968 by Professor V. Krachkovsky, was thought to be symbols of the Thuluth Arabic alphabet of the 19th century. This falsification, however, found its way into some renowned scientific journals, including the Czechoslovak New Orient (B. Mkrtchian, "The Mystery of Metsamor," No. 3, VI, 1967) and Anatolian Studies(Volume XVIII, 1968), as well as into popular publications of Armenia: the newspaper Komsomolets (15 November 1968) and the magazine Garun (No. 1, 1969). In these publications Ayvazyan argues:
Thus, Ayvazyan created a theory of the Armenian origins of Urartu, with the support of the abovementioned "evidence" of material culture and the discredited attempt at translating the Urartian cuneiform inscriptions into Armenian.
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