The history of modern Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, traces its roots back to Erebuni Fortress an ancient Urartian fortified monument from which also the modern city of Yerevan derives its name. The earliest reference to Yerevan in the medieval records dates from 607 A.D. Located one in the bottommost parts of the Armenian Highlands, the city lies on the banks of the rivers Getar and Hrazdan, the easternmost end of the Ararat Plain (historically, the ancient Armenian province of Ayrarat). Several ancient and medieval Armenian capitals are situated in the vicinity of Yerevan. From the early 15th century onwards, the city was the administrative center of the Safavid Empire; in the mid-18th century it was proclaimed the capital of the Erivan Khanate, in 1918 - the capital of the First Republic of Armenia and in - 1920 - the capital of Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic. Since 1991, Yerevan has been the capital of the Third Republic of Armenia.
Name
The name "Yerevan" derives its origins from the Erebuni Fortress. As noted by Anne Elizabeth, a British scholar from Newcastle University, a number of Armenian toponymies and family names have either retained or contain a certain reminiscence of the earlier substratum. The name Erebunni was retained in Yerevan, whereas Tushpa bears resemblance to Tospa. In the Middle Ages, the city was known with the name Yerevan. In a Sevanavank record dating from 874 A.D., we find "յԵրեւան" as a form of reference. In foreign language sources, the forms Ervan, Erivan, Revan, Irevan, Errevant, Ervan, Erivan, Revant were traditionally used alongside Yerevan.
Ancient period With its geographic location in an area populated for many centuries, Yerevan is historically in one of the most fertile parts of Armenia. The commonly accepted viewpoint is that the city derives its name from the Erebuni Fortress, which was built in the 8th century B.C. Earlier, Wilhelm Eilers stated in his records that the Armenian word vank (monastery - translator's note) originated from the verbs erewim/erewec (emerged, appeared). The opinion was based on the folk etymology associated with the legend on the landing of Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat. The ancient fable thus ascribed the foundation of the city to Noah's time. French traveler Jean Chardin who visited Yerevan in the late 17th century, wrote: "According to the Armenians, Yerevan is the world's oldest settlement; their legend says that Noah resided there with his family both before, and after, the deluge as he left the mountain on which the ark rested". Long before the discovery of the inscription on the mound Arin Berd, there were available records about Erebuni from another inscription carved by King Argishti of Urartu on a rock in the vicinity of Van (the south-eastern outskirts of Yerevan). It contained a message on the resettlement 600,000 warriors in the province of Tsupa (Sophene). As a result, also other inscriptions on the city's foundation were discovered in 782 B.C. Those first residents of the city had mixed Proto-Armenian-Luwian-Hurrian roots which, apparently, brought here the Proto-Armenian language. Erebuni was an economic, political and military center of Urartu, serving as a residence during military campaigns against the northern neighbors. The town continued existing also after the fall of Urartu. In the Achaemenid epoch, numerous redevelopment activities were carried out; new buildings were constructed.
Middle Ages
The earliest reference to Yerevan in the Armenian sources is found in the Book of Letters. A document dating from 607 A.D. contains records about Daniel, a priest from Yerevan who, during the First Council of Dvin, relinquished the Chalcedonian creed upon the demand of Catholicos Abraham. It is known that at the time, the Saint Paul and Peter Church, constructed presumably in the 6th or the early 7th century, already existed in Yerevan. Clifford Edmund Bosworth describes Yerevan as one of those Armenian cities which, located in the Aras River Valley, saw many wars and battles in the Middle Ages. James Howard-Johnston classifies Yerevan among the cities which, in the early 7th century, was in the zone of the Byzantine-Sassanian wars. Also Sebeos, a 7th-century historian, made a reference to the city in the form Hērewan (as well as its fortress) in connection with the Arab invasion of Armenia. "They came and gathered near Erivan, battled with the fortress but were unable to seize it". Sources dating from a later period cite Tsitetsernakaberd as the main citadel of Yerevan. John Skylitzes, a Byzantine historian of the 13th and 14th centuries, refers to it in the form Chelidonion. In 1047, the fortress was under Byzantine occupation, and several years earlier, it had been seized from the Armenian kingdom of Bagratids by Abu'l-Aswar Shaddadid. The strategic significance of Yerevan is also emphasized in records dating from the Bagratid Kingdom of Armenia. Hovhannes Draskhanakerttsi refers to the small town of Yerevan in an early 10th century description: "At the time, they say a fighting was going on in the vicinity of the qaghaqagyugh [village-turned-town] of Yerevan. The circumstances of the war were made known to you by those who had given their description earlier". No records are available about the exact date of the event. Samuel Anetsi, a 12th-century historian, writes, without reference to earlier sources, about the siege of Yerevan in 660 A.D. A small town under the Bagratids, it developed ties with the neighboring regions in connection with the country's economic progress. In a record dating from the 13th century, Mekhitar of Ayrivank says that Prince Apirat "... built Kecharus and constructed the channel to Erivani".
Stepanos Orbelyan sheds light upon an inscription dating from the second half of the 9th century and containing a reference to Yerevan. It is believed that Prince Grigor of Syunik established it in Mekenyats Monostery on the southern coast of Sevan. Orbelyan believed that the vineyards of Yerevan were a gift by Mekenyats Monastery and Sevanavank. The earliest inscription referring to Yerevan was carved in Sevanavank in 874 A. D. Yerevan, as a town, is also referred to in lapidary inscriptions dating from 901, 981, 1201 and 1204. The name "Yerevan" was preserved in a 1264 inscription on the wall of the St. Katoghike Church in the city's center.
Between the 11th and 13th centuries, Yerevan turned into a feudal city already known as the capital of Kotayk province. Vardan the Great, in his mid-13th century "Geography", states: "Kotayk is the city of Yerevan with its district". At the turn of the 13th century, joint Armenian-Georgian troops, relying on the Armenian population's support, liberated the country's entire north from Seljuk invaders. Later, the Zakarid Armenia was established there under the Georgian Protectorate. In the first decades of the 13th century, Yerevan, along with other cities and towns and provinces of north-eastern Armenia, was under the rule of Ivane Zakaryan and his son, Avag. Yerevan, like other medieval cities, was under feudal ownership. The greater part of settlers were exploited by feudalists of either the secular or the religious class. There were also free craftsmen and free settlers who, however, were obliged to do certain work for the estate rulers and pay different duties.
There are also available records about the cultural life of medieval Yerevan. Hovhannes Kozern, an 11th-century scholar, is known to have been among the outstanding residents of the city for a certain period. He was buried in an ancient graveyard currently known as the Kozern Cemetery․ Terter Yerevantsi, a medieval Armenian poet, was born in Yerevan in the late 13th century.
Judging by the coins which have survived to our days, Yerevan was a leading center in the Aras Valley. It lay at a route connecting Barda with the city of Dvin. The earliest samples of the available coins melted in Yerevan trace their origins back to the Mongolian khanate of Ilkhanate. Here belong a 1333 golden coin which was owned by Abu Sa'id Bahadur Khan and a 1344 silver coin ascribed to Nushirvan Khan.
The late 14th century invasion of Tamerlan marked a period of a serious pause in the city's development. In 1387, Yerevan was ruined; the calamity claimed 500 human lives (Grigor Khlatetsi, Colophons of Disasters). According to Bakhikhanov, the same period saw Tamerlan populate the region with 50 families from the Qajar tribe "Emir Teymur" (Tamerlan), relocate 50,000 Qajar families in the Caucasus Krai (at the time, an administrative division of the Russian Empire) and resettle them in Yerevan, Ganja, Karabagh, where, in the course of time, they kept increasing in number. Many of those Qajars were statesmen under the Safavids and ruled Armenia and Shirvan". Later, under the rule of the Turkmen tribes Qara Qoyunlu and Aq Qoyunlu, Yerevan became an important cultural center under conditions of a political instability and an economic stagnation. It was in that period that the Qara Qoyunlu leader, Iskander, appointed a descendent of the Orbelian family the head of Yerevan with jurisdiction over the entire Ayrarat province. In the early 16th century, the city was conquered by Shah Ismail I from the Safavid dynasty, and several years later, it was consecutively conquered by the Ottoman Sultans Selim and Suleiman. Like the entire rest of Eastern Armenia, Yerevan for many decades remained an apple of discord between the Ottomans and the Persians.
Modern age
After the Qara Qoyunlus proclaimed Yerevan the administrative center of Ararat province, travelers and historians often referred to it as a major regional city and the center of trade and handicraft of Eastern Armenia. From the 16th century onwards, Yerevan remained a key regional city, becoming the center of Persian rule of Eastern Armenia. The name Yerevan was featured also in the 16th century Ottoman-Safavid conflicts, when both sides battled for control over the entire Eastern Armenia. After the seizure of Kars and Nakhichevan in 1554, the Ottoman's conquered Yerevan, massacring a great number of residents and burning part of the city. Entrenching themselves in the late 1770s, they appointed their own governors there. The first Ottoman governor, Farhat Pasha, constructed a new big fortress between 1582 and 1583, making it a center of Ottoman defense against Safavid invasions. In the fight for control over Yerevan, the Persians and Turks periodically restored and completed the fortress. In 1604, it was conquered by Shah Abbas I. During the 1603-1618 Russian-Persian war, Abbas adhered to the "scorched-earth" tactics. The city and the nearest provinces were devastated, with the entire population being expelled into the depths of Persia. Historian Arakel Davrizhetsi provided a description of the Armenian population's mass deportation from Yerevan to Isfahan.
․․․ Shah Abbas did not pay any attention to the Armenians' entreaties. He called his Nakharars (ministers - translator's note) to himself and appointed some of them as overseers and middlemen for residents of the country so as every prince, accompanied by his troops, could dispossess and expel the population of one gavar. Amurghan Khan was placed in charge of the [population] of Yerevan proper [Ararat Province] and several gavars nearby.