[8] For a discussion of the name see Parrot, op. cit. p. 110. Ritter (Erdkunde, x. 508) also refers to Brosset (Bulletin de l’Acad. de Sc. de St. Pétersbourg, 1841, vol. viii. p. 43), but is in error when he says that Brosset spells it Aghuri. He actually spells it Acorhi, and throws doubt upon the popular derivation of the name. It would appear that the old Armenian name for the place was Akuri or Agguri, and that later Armenian writers turned the word into Ark-uri in order to extract the signification which I have given in the text. I have adopted the spelling of the Russian official map, which practically reproduces the old word. Dr. Belck has made the ingenious suggestion that the Adduri of the Assyrian inscription of Shalmaneser II. (859–824 B.C.)—a name which is applied to the mountains whither Arame, king of Urardhu or Ararat, fled before the armies of the Assyrian monarch—may be represented by the Armenian Akuri or Agguri (Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, 1893, p. 71). That the ancient name of a district often survives in that of a town in these countries is proved by the analogy of the town of Van, which bears the name of the kingdom of which it was formerly the capital, the Biaina of the Vannic texts. [↑]
[9] Wagner (op. infra cit. p. 166) says that at the time of the catastrophe the Armenian inhabitants numbered nearly 1600 souls, besides Kurdish labourers. [↑]
[10] Von Behagel (apud Parrot, op. cit. 2nd part, p. 183) says 1000 feet. I quote Parrot p. 147. [↑]
[11] Parrot, op. cit. p. 147. Von Behagel (loc. cit.) says that it was 3258 Paris feet, or 3472 English feet, above the plain of the Araxes. [↑]
[12] Parrot, op. cit. p. 135; Dubois, op. cit. vol. iii. p. 471. Most travellers tell this story with amplifications and variations. It is to be found in its earliest form in Faustus of Byzantium (book iii. chap. x.). [↑]
[13] Parrot, op. cit. p. 205. [↑]
[14] Von Behagel, apud Parrot, loc. cit. [↑]
[15] Tournefort, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 368 seq. [↑]
[16] The testimony of these witnesses is given by Abich, Geognostiche Reise zum Ararat, with two drawings of the chasm, in Monatsberichte der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu Berlin, series 2, vol. iv. 1846–47. The account is reproduced in his Geologische Forschungen in den kaukasischen Ländern, Vienna, 1882, part ii. pp. 395 seq., and illustrated by a fine geological view of the chasm in the Atlas, plate vi. It can best be understood in the reprint. See also Wagner, op. inf. cit., and Ritter, Erdkunde, x. pp. 507 seq. [↑]
[17] See the summary of this report in Ritter, Erdkunde, x. pp. 509 seq. [↑]