ՀԱՄԼԵՏ ՄԱՐՏԻՐՈՍԵԱՆ / HAMLET MARTIROSSIAN 
(arm)
Եդեմի արխիւի մասին յիշատակումներ հայ աղբիւրներում 
Mentions of the Eden archive in the old sources 

Bazmavep 2011 / 1 - 2, pp. 329-341

The results of the preliminary research have shown that the pictograms, found in the Syunik region of the RA, represent a writing system of ideograms, created not later than in the 12th millennium B.C. Moreover, it was found out that there are hundreds of Sumerian and Egyptian signs in the pictograms of Syunik (see Appendix 1 and Appendix 2). The published Sumerian and Egyp­tian written sources do not provide direct geographical indications about the primary place of origin of the written language. But such indications are found in the Book of Jubilees and the Book of Genesis, roots of which go to Meso­po­tamia. According to the Book of Jubilees, Noah’s ark rested on the top of the mountain Lubar of the Ararat country. Noah’s offspring settled and bred in the neighborhood of the mountain Lubar. One of them Kayinan was looking for a place where he might found his city, and in the course of his search։ “He found a writing, which former had carved on the rock, and he read what was thereon, and he transcribed it and discovered that it contained the teaching of the Wat­chers about the omens of the sun and moon and stars in all the signs of heaven”. Hence, this is the precise exposition of Syunik’s pictograms. 
In the Armenian translation of the Genesis (the 5th century) it is said։ “And the Ark rested on the Araratian Mountains”, but unlike the Book of Jubi­lees, a name of a proper mountain is not mentioned. Subsequently, enumerating the names of Yektan’s sons, the Book of Genesis states that։ “And their dwell­ing was from Maseats, as thou goest unto Sovpera, a mount of the east”. From this short passage of the Book of Genesis the toponyms “Maseats” and “Sovpera”, which are not mentioned elsewhere, become our subject of consider­ation. Scien­tists are uncertain about identification of these toponyms, and their precise loca­tion is unknown to the present days. St. Mesrop Mashtots and St. Sahak Partev, while translating the Book of Genesis, interpreted the Greek toponym Μασση as Maseats, which in Armenian literally means “from the (Great and Small) Masis Mountains”. This mountain is known worldwide as Ararat. If the western border of the residence area of Yektan and his 13 sons was Masis, the mountain of Salvation, then there were the mountains of Syunik with their pictograms to the East from them. The Book of Genesis mentions Syunik in form of Soper (Sovper, Sopar, Sopor), since this word with its Semitic origin means “writing” (in Assyrian sefrā = “writing, book”, sāfrā = “writer”, in Hebrew spr, sfr = “to retell, count, write”, sōfēr = “writer”, in Aramean sāfrā = “writer”, Arabic sifr = “book”, etc.). Therefore, the phrase “Soper Mountain” in the Book of Genesis literally means “the mountain of the writings” and indicates Syunik with its pre-Flood pictograms.