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Utik
Province of Kingdom of Armenia
189 BC–387 AD
Historical era	Antiquity Middle Ages
• Artaxias I declaring himself independent	189 BC
• Given to Caucasian Albania by Sassanids	387 AD
Today part of	Azerbaijan  Armenia

Utik (Template:Lang-hy) was a historical province and principality within the Kingdom of Armenia. It was ceded to Caucasian Albania following the partition of Armenia between Sassanid Persia and the Eastern Roman Empire in 387 AD. Most of the region is located within present-day Azerbaijan immediately west of the Kura River, while a part of it lies within the Tavush province of present-day northeastern Armenia.

Name

In Armenian sources, Utik is also called Uti, Awti, Utiats’wots’ ashkharh 'land of the people of Utik', Utiats’wots’ gavar’ 'district of the people of Utik', Utiakan ashkharh and Utiakan gavar’ 'Utian land/district'. It is identified with the place names Otene in Ptolemy's Geography, Otenon in the Latin Ravenna Cosmography, and Ūdh in the Arabic history Futuh al-Buldan by al-Baladhuri. It may also be identifiable with the land called Outia by Strabo. According to Robert H. Hewsen, the name of Utik is likely connected with the ethnonyms Outioi, mentioned by Strabo and Herodotus, and Udini, mentioned by Pliny. However, Pliny also mentions a group called the Uti, which suggests that this is a separate group from the Udini. Wolfgang Schulze writes that Otene and Uti(k) are not necessarily related and may refer to two distinct regions. Udi-/uti- may be an old toponym referring to the lowlands between the Kura River, the Arax, and the mountains of Karabakh. The place name is related to the name of the Udi people, who live in the South Caucasus today.

Geography

According to the Armenian geography Ashkharhatsuyts (7th century, attributed to Anania Shirakatsi), Utik was the twelfth of the fifteen provinces of the Kingdom of Greater Armenia, and belonged, at the time, to Caucasian Albania (the provinces of Utik and Artsakh had been lost by Armenia after its partition in the 4th century). According to Ashkharatsuyts, Utik consisted of eight districts (gavar’s in Armenian): Aranrot, Tri, Rotparsyan, Aghve, Tuskstak (Tavush), Gardman, Shakashen, and Uti Arandznak ('Uti Proper'). The province was bounded by the Kura River from north-east, the river Arax from south-east, and by the province of Artsakh from the west. According to Hewsen, in the Ashkharhatsuyts, in contrast with other old Armenian sources, the principality of Utik is combined with the separate principalities of Gardman and Shakashen (consisting of the districts of Shakashen and Tuskstak). Additionally, the districts of Tri and Rotestak/Rotparsyan may have formed a separate principality of the Gargarians during the Arsacid period.

Utik was the site of the settlement of Khaghkhagh, which Agathangelos calls the "winter quarters of the Armenian kings" but which Elishe and Movses Kaghankatvatsi call the quarters of the Albanian kings. Its location is uncertain. Suren Yeremian places the city of Ainiana, mentioned by Strabo as being located in Outia, with modern Aghdam, but, in Hewsen's view, this is also uncertain. Utik was the site of a settlement called Tigranakert, built by Tigranes I in the 2nd–1st century BC. It may have been located in Gardman in the valley of the Shamkir (Shamkor) River.

History

The territory of Utik was controlled by the Achaemenid Empire. Herodotus reports that the Outians were located in the fourteenth satrapy of that empire and that they formed part of the Persian army together with the Mykoi at Doriscus. The Outians and the Mykoi, identified with the Yutiya and Maka of Achaemenid inscriptions, may have been migrants from southeastern Iran, although, according to another view, these groups were only ever located in southeastern Iran. According to Hewsen, Utik seems to have been part of the satrapy of Media and the succeeding kingdom of Media Atropatene until the 2nd century BC, when, according to Strabo, Artaxias I of Greater Armenia conquered the lands of Syunik and Caspiane and the lands that lay between them, i.e., Utik and Artsakh. Some Armenian scholars like Babken Harutiunian and Asatur Mnatsakanian believe that Syunik and Utik were already controlled by Armenia under the Orontid dynasty and were reconquered by Artaxias I, but Hewsen writes that there is no evidence to support this claim.

Utik remained a part of Armenia for some 500 years after Artaxias's conquest, although the Armenian-Albanian boundary along the Kura River was often overrun by armies of both countries. It was lost as a result of the Roman–Persian peace of 363 AD, but, according to the author of Buzandaran Patmut’iwnk’, in 370 AD the Armenian sparapet Mushegh Mamikonian defeated the Albanians and restored the frontier back to the river Kura. In 387 AD, the Sassanid Empire helped the Albanians to seize from the Kingdom of Armenia a number of provinces, including Utik. Although there is some evidence that suggests that Utik remained a part of the Persian-controlled kingdom of Armenia even after 387, it was definitely incorporated into Albania after the abolition of the Armenian kingdom in 428.

In the middle of the 5th century, by the order of the Persian king Peroz I, the king Vache of Caucasian Albania built in Utik the city initially called Perozapat, and later Partaw and Barda, and made it the capital of Caucasian Albania. (Partaw may have existed previously as a town or a village by that name.) According to another view, Peroz I constructed the city himself after deposing the ruling family of Albania. The princes of Utik, who formed part of the Armenian nobility, remained as rulers the province under Albanian and, later, Arab rule. After the fall of the Albanian kingdom in the early 6th century, it was not the princes of Utik, however, but those of Gardman who became the dominant princes of Albania. They were recognized as Presiding Princes of Albania by the Byzantine emperor Heraclius in 628 and remained in this position until 822. In 922, Utik was annexed by the Bagratid kingdom of Armenia, but this included only part of the province's historical territory. According to Cyril Toumanoff, the descendants of the princes of Utik were present in southern Artsakh as late as the 11th century. Later, Artsakh and Utik were known as Karabakh, with the territory of Utik forming the lowland or steppe part of Karabakh.

Population

In ancient times, the area was inhabited by Armenians and "Utis" (likely the ancestors of modern-day Udi people). The early Armenian historian Movses Khorenatsi writes that the princes of Utik descended from Sisak, a descendant of the legendary Armenian progenitor Hayk and the reputed ancestor of the princes of Syunik. Mnatsakanian has cited this as Hewsen writes that "t seems likely that except for Siwnik', eastern Armenia was not much more than armenized" and that the Utians were "almost certainly a Caucasian tribe." Historian Tim Greenwood writes that by the time of the composition of the Ashkharhatsuyts, Utik, along with the provinces of Artsakh and Gugark, were no longer administratively part of Armenian but "they were evidently remembered as once having been Armenian and may have still contained communities who thought of themselves and the settlements they occupied as Armenian."

Utik had been one of the provinces of Greater Armenia, the population of which is referred to by the name Udini (or Utidorsi) in Latin sources, and by the name Outioi in Greek sources. However, Ancient Greco-Roman writers placed the Udis beyond Utik, north of the Kura River.

Pliny the Elder names both the Uti and the Udini among the tribes living in eastern Transcaucasia and calls the latter a Scythian tribe ("Scytharum populus"). This suggests the possibility that some Iranian-speaking or, less likely, Finno-Ugric peoples may have settled in the area and adopted the language of the local Caucasian population). More likely, however, the terms refer not to any specific ethnic group in the modern sense but simply the inhabitants of the eponymous region.

See also

• List of regions of ancient Armenia

Notes

1. Without the suffix -k’, which forms the nominative plural and the names of countries
2. Hariutiunian considers the juncture of the Kura and its tributary the Zayamchay (Zakam) to be a likely location. Other proposed locations are the confluence of the Kura and the Aghstafa or further up the Aghstafa.
3. Strabo refers to Phauene, which some scholars read as *Sauene and identify with Syunik.
4. Elsewhere in the same work, however, Hewsen writes that it is possible that Orontid domains extended to the confluence of the Kura and the Arax.

References

1. ^ Chaumont, M. L. (1985). "Albania". Encyclopædia Iranica, Online Edition. Encyclopædia Iranica Foundation. The more or less self-interested loyalty of the Albanians explains why the Sasanians helped them to seize from the Armenians the provinces (or districts) of Uti (with the towns of Xałxał and Pʿartaw), Šakašēn, Kołṭʿ, Gardman, and Arcʿax. (...) These territories were to remain in the possession of Albania; a reconquest by Mušeł (cf. Pʿawstos, ibid.) was unlikely.
2. ^ Harutiunian, B. (1986). "Utikʻ". In Arzumanian, Makich; et al. (eds.). Haykakan sovetakan hanragitaran [Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia] (in Armenian). Vol. 12. Erevan: Haykakan hanragitarani glkhavor khmbagrutʻyun. pp. 267–269. Cite error: The named reference "ASE" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
3. ^ Hewsen, Robert H. (1992). The Geography of Ananias of Širak (Ašxarhac῾oyc῾): The Long and the Short Recensions. Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag. p. 260. ISBN 3-88226-485-3.
4. ^ Hewsen, Robert H. (2001). Armenia: A Historical Atlas. University of Chicago Press. p. 58. ISBN 0-226-33228-4.
5. Schulze, Wolfgang (2018). "Caucasian Albanian and the Question of Language and Ethnicity". In Mumm, Peter-Arnold (ed.). Völker und Phantome: Sprach- und kulturwissenschaftliche Studien zur Ethnizität (1st ed.). Berlin: De Gruyter. p. 289.
6. Anania Shirakatsi, "Geography"
7. Hewsen 2001, p. 102.
8. ^ Garsoïan, Nina G. (1989). The Epic Histories Attributed to Pʻawstos Buzand (Buzandaran Patmutʻiwnkʻ). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 498. ISBN 0-674-25865-7.
9. Hewsen 2001, map 52.
10. Hewsen, Robert H. (1982). "Ethno-History and the Armenian Influence upon the Caucasian Albanians". In Samuelian, Thomas J. (ed.). Classical Armenian Culture: Influences and Creativity. Chico, CA: Scholars Press. p. 33. ISBN 0-89130-565-3.
11. Akopian , Aleksan (2022). Albaniia-Aluank v greko-latinskikh i drevnearmianskikh istochnikakh (in Russian) (2nd, rev. ed.). Yerevan: Gitutyun. pp. 67–68. ISBN 978-5-8080-1485-5.
12. ^ Hewsen 1982, p. 32.
13. Hewsen 2001, p. 32.
14. Dum-Tragut, Jasmine; Gippert, Jost (2023). "Caucasian Albania in Medieval Armenian Sources (5th–13th Centuries)". In Gippert, Jost; Dum-Tragut, Jasmine (eds.). Caucasian Albania: An International Handbook. Berlin: De Gruyter. p. 48. doi:10.1515/9783110794687-002. ISBN 978-3-11-079459-5.
15. Hewsen 1992, p. 263.
16. Gadjiev, Murtazali (2017). "Construction Activities of Kavād I in Caucasian Albania". Iran and the Caucasus. 21 (2). Brill: 122–123. doi:10.1163/1573384X-20170202.
17. Mutafian, Claude (2024). "Survey of Historical Geography of the South Caucasus from the Middle Ages to the Present Day". In Dorfmann-Lazarev, Igor; Khatchadourian, Haroutioun (eds.). Monuments and Identities in the Caucasus: Karabagh, Nakhichevan and Azerbaijan in Contemporary Geopolitical Conflict. Leiden: Brill. pp. 15–16. ISBN 978-90-04-67738-8.
18. Hewsen 1992, p. 195.
19. ^ Igor Kuznetsov. Udis.
20. Agathangelos, History of St. Gregory
21. Moses Khorenatsʻi (2006). History of the Armenians. Translation and commentary by Robert W. Thomson (Rev. ed.). Ann Arbor: Caravan Books. p. 137 (Book II, Chapter 8). ISBN 978-0-88206-111-5.
22. Greenwood, Tim (29 August 2019). "Armenian Space in Late Antiquity". In Van Nuffelen, Peter (ed.). Historiography and Space in Late Antiquity. Cambridge University Press. p. 84. doi:10.1017/9781108686686.004. ISBN 978-1-108-68668-6.
23. "Wolfgang Schulze. The Language of the 'Caucasian Albanian' (Aluan) Palimpses". Archived from the original on 2001-10-30. Retrieved 2001-10-30.
24. Pliny. Natural History, Book VI, Chapter 15.
25. Schulze, Wolfgang (May 2017). "Caucasian Albanian and the Question of Language and Ethnicity". Language and Ethnic Identity – via ResearchGate.

v t e Historical states and regions of Armenia
Independent Armenian states	Kingdom of Armenia (antiquity) (Orontids, Artaxiads and Arsacids, 553 BC–428 AD) Kingdom of Armenia (Middle Ages) (Bagratunis, 884–1045) Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia (Rubenids, Hethumids and Lusignans, 1080–1375) Republic of Armenia (1918–1920) Republic of Armenia (1991–present)
Minor or dependent Armenian states	Satrapy of Armenia (Orontids, 522–331 BC) Principality of Hamamshen (790–1486) Kingdom of Vaspurakan (Artsrunis, 908–1021) Kingdom of Vanand (963–1064) Kingdom of Tashir-Dzoraget (Kiurikians, 979–1118) Kingdom of Syunik (Siunis, 987–1170) Kingdom of Artsakh (Khachen, 1000–1261) Zakarid Principality of Armenia (Zakarians, 1201–1335) Melikdoms of Karabakh (Beglarians, Israelians, Hasan-Jalalians, Shanazarians and Avanians, 1603–1822) Republic of Mountainous Armenia (1921, unrecognized) Soviet Armenia (1920–1991) Artsakh (1991–2023, unrecognized)
Provinces or Ashkhars of Armenia Major	Upper Armenia Sophene Arzanene Turuberan Moxoene Corduene Nor Shirakan Vaspurakan Syunik Artsakh Paytakaran Utik Gugark Tayk Ayrarat
Other Armenian regions	Lesser Armenia First Second Third Armenian Mesopotamia Cilicia Mountainous Plain Rocky
Other provinces under Tigranes the Great	Syria Atropatene Adiabene Assyria Iberia Albania Cappadocia Judea Osroene

v t e Historical regions of Caucasian Albania
	Caspiane Gardman Cambysene Utik Begh Eghni Shake Kholmaz Gelavu Kaladash Kapalak Hegeri Cholaa Lpina Hereti

• States and territories established in the 2nd century BC
• Provinces of the Kingdom of Armenia (antiquity)
• Ancient history of Azerbaijan