Island Taproban in “Ancient Armenian Geography” (“Ashkharatsuyts”)

The question of studying the ancient island of Taprobana (now Sri Lanka) is of great scientific interest. About this remote island located in the Indian Ocean we find very little information from ancient (Greco-Roman) authors (Strabo, Pomponius Mela, Pliny, Ptolemy etc.). At present, its history, as well as the problem of localization by ancient historians is of great interest. And now the debate about the question continues: which island did the ancient historians-geographers mean when they mentioned Taproban. There is an opinion that Taproban is the island of Sumatra or Kalimantan. In the course of our research using a comparative analysis of the sources as well as applying a hermeneutical approach to the material under study we tried to prove that the early medieval Armenian source refers to the territory of the modern state of Sri Lanka. It should be noted that the "Ancient Armenian geography" ("Ashkharatsuyts") is not limited to the description of the geographical location of the island, which is mentioned in the source in the list of Asian countries as the thirty-sixth (the 35th country mentioned is India, and the 37th is Syunikia, which, as we have established, is the northern part of China; located in the Yellow River Basin region). With minor errors and omissions, the Armenian source defines the parameters of the island, which was known not only for its bread (millet), but also for mushrooms, as well as non-rotting firewood (probably, we are talking about solid wood; this information is of particular importance, since this is probably one of the first mentions of this kind of firewood), mention precious stones (gems, gold, silver, pearls, diamond, ruby, etc.). In addition to millet, the islanders grew bread (wheat, in Arm. hats). We confidently name this particular crop, since in the Armenian language the first meaning of the word hats is wheat. It is interesting to learn about the names of two tribes called Atsatsanami, Aatsainami, who were the main suppliers of this most important product. Special attention in the source is paid to the mountains of Daliuba, Malia and Gailase, from which all six major rivers of the island originate. The authors of the source give a brief description of two cities (Manacor and Royan); there were more cities, and this gap was filled by Ptolemy. It is important to know about the beliefs of the inhabitants of Taprobana, who considered the Moon to be their main God, since this celestial body played a crucial role in night navigation. Based on the information of Ptolemy "Ancient Armenian Geography" mentions that the main temple of the island was dedicated to the Moon. Among all the references to the Armenian source, the information about the islands around Taprobana seems incredible. According to "Ashkharatsuits" the island is surrounded by 1,377 small islands, which is clearly exaggerated. Probably, this information has misled modern researchers who have Taprobana in the Indonesian archipelago, where there are almost 18 thousand islands, of which almost 9700 are unnamed. Summarizing the results of our research we can conclude: the text of the "Ancient Armenian Geography" ("Ashkharatsuyts") is a kind of encyclopedia of the study of Taprobana, since it does not only present a historical and geographical description of this territory, but also discusses the problems of socio-economic development of the country, the ethnic map (tribes), hydrography, orography, flora and fauna, minerals, urbanization etc., which are of great interest to scientists. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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