The Armenian Dynasty from China

The Geghard Monastery, founded in the 4th century. Armenian tradition holds that the Holy Lance, or "Spear of Destiny," the Roman spear that wounded Christ on the Cross, was kept here. November 2016.

I was in Armenia in November and December, which afforded a chance to investigate my favorite mystery from Armenian history. The Mamikonian family arrived on the scene in the late-third or early-fourth century A.D., obscured by the fogs of antiquity. Edward Gibbon described a certain Mamgo who appeared “[a]mong the Armenian nobles [as] an ally” around 286 A.D., although the first Mamikonian lord of whom we have any definite knowledge was Vatche Mamikonian, active in the 330s.

Moses of Chorene, or Movses Khorenatsi, in his fifth century History of Armenia, claimed that back in the second century, two brothers named Mamik and Konak came to Armenia from China. They were half-brothers of “Chenbakir,” an emperor of the Han Dynasty. They had rebelled against their brother and, after defeat, fled to the protection of Parthia or Persia, which sent them to Armenia. The Mamikonians were descendants of Mamik.

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