The area of ancient Armavir has been inhabited since the 6th millennium BC. Various obsidian instruments, bronze objects and pottery have been found from that period. Armenian accounts held the city to have founded by King Aramais, a grandson of
Hayk, around 1980 BC. During the first half of the 8th century BC, King
Argishti I of
Urartu built a fortress in the area and named it
Argishtikhinili. In 331 BC, when Armenia under the
Orontid dynasty asserted its independence from the
Achaemenid Empire, Armavir was chosen as the capital of Armenia. Slabs of clay have been found from the Achaemenid period written in the
Elamite language concerning episodes of the
Gilgamesh epic. Various inscriptions in
Hellenistic Greek carved around the third century BC, have been found, including poetry from
Hesiod, lines from
Euripides, a list of
Macedonian months, and names of Orontid Kings. According to the 5th-century Armenian historian
Movses Khorenatsi, Armavir was the first capital of the Kingdom of Armenia (although, from a geographical standpoint, the first capital of Armenia was
Van). Movses' history preserves a tradition that when King
Valarsace the Parthian settled in Armavir (ca. 149 BC), he built a temple there and asked prince
aspet (knight) Smbat of the
Bagratuni dynasty to give up his religion and worship idols. But Smbat refused to comply. Movses also relates that when King
Tigranes II (whom he places on the throne from 90 to 36 BC), in order to take revenge on Queen
Cleopatra of Egypt, sent an expedition to Palestine, he carried a great number of
Jews into captivity, and settled them in Armavir and in Vardges. Movses goes on to state that later Jews were transferred from Armavir to
Yervandashat, and under King
Artashes I, were again transferred into the new capital
Artashat. When King
Sapor II of
Persia invaded Armenia (360–370), he led away from Artashat 30,000 Armenian and 9,000 Jewish families, the latter brought by King Tigranes from
Judea, and then completely destroyed the city. In 591, during the reign of
emperor Maurice, Armavir (then called
Armaouira) and much of Armenia came under Roman administration after the Romans defeated the
Sassanid Persian Empire at the
battle of the Blarathon. During Antiquity, Armavir was taken by the
Seleucids,
Parthians,
Roman Empire,
Sassanids and
Byzantine Empire before it was taken over by the Arabs in 645. By the decision of the Soviet government, the settlement of Armavir was founded as
Sardarabat on 26 July 1931, only 8 km north of the ancient city of
Armavir, to become the regional centre of the
Hoktemberyan raion created earlier in 1930 (known as
Ghurdughuli raion until 1935). It was originally founded as a railway station connecting
Yerevan with Leninakan (
Gyumri). The first major urban plan of the town was introduced by architect
Alexander Tamanian. In 1935, the name of the settlement was changed from Sardarabat to
Hoktemberyan in honor of the 1917
October Revolution. At the beginning, it was home to Armenian families who migrated from
Javakheti, Shirak and
Zangezur. During the 1940s, many Yazidis and Kurds from the nearby villages have also settled in Hoktemberyan. With the rapid development of the settlement as an industrial hub, Hoktemberyan was given the status of a town in 1947. The population of the town was further increased in the 1950s and 1960s upon the arrival of repatriated Armenian families from Iran, Syria and Lebanon. In 1966, the Armavir branch of the
Yerevan Brandy Company was opened. In 1967, Hokberyan became a city of republican subordination. Following the independence of Armenia in 1991, Hoktemberyan was renamed Armavir on 7 November 1995, to become the provincial centre of the newly formed Armavir Province, as per the 1995 administrative reforms of Armenia. ==Geography==