Mamikonian
| Mamikonian | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Country |
Armenia Persia |
| Titles | |
| Founded | 314 |
| Founder | Artavasdes I |
| Final ruler | Musel VI |
| Current head | Extinct |
| Dissolution | 1189 |
| Ethnicity | Armenian |
| Cadet branches |
Liparitids Tumanyan |
Mamikonian or Mamikonean (Classical Armenian: Մամիկոնեան; reformed orthography: Մամիկոնյան; Western Armenian pronunciation: Mamigonian) was an aristocratic dynasty which dominated Armenian politics between the 4th and 8th century. They ruled the Armenian regions of Taron, Sasun, Bagrevand and others. Their patron saint was Saint Hovhannes Karapet (John the Baptist) whose monastery of the same name (also known as Glak) they fiercely defended against the Sassanid invaders.
The origin of the Mamikonians is shrouded in the mists of antiquity. Moses of Chorene in his History of Armenia (5th century) claims that three centuries earlier two noblemen of "Chem" (Arm. "Ճեմ"; plur. "Ճեմք") origin (which is speculated to mean probably Chinese origin), Mamik and Konak, rose against their half-brother, Chenbakir, the king of Chenk (which possibly refers to China). They were defeated and fled to the king of Parthia who, braving the Emperor's demands to extradite the culprits, sent them to live in Armenia, where Mamik became the progenitor of the Mamikonians.
Another 5th-century Armenian historian, Pavstos Buzand, seconded the story. In his History of Armenia, he twice mentions that the Mamikonians descended from the Han Dynasty of China and as such were not inferior to the Arshakid rulers of Armenia. This genealogical legend may have been part of an agenda by the Bagratid dynasty of Armenia to take away the legitimacy off the Mamikonian dynasty. Although it echoes the Bagratids' claim of Davidic descent and the Artsruni's claim of the royal Assyrian ancestry, some Armenian historians tended to interpret it as something more than a piece of genealogical mythology. A theory from the 1920s postulated that the Chenk mentioned in the Armenian sources were not Han-Chinese but probably from a different Iranian-speaking ethnic group from Transoxania, such as the in Northwest China.Edward Gibbon in his The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire also believed that the founder of Mamikonian clan was not Han-Chinese but merely from the territory of the Chinese Empire and ascribes a Scythian origin to Mamgon stating that at the time the borders of the Chinese Empire reached as far west as Sogdiana.
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