TRAVELLERS, NATURAL PHILOSOPHERS AND HISTORIANS VISITING ARMENIA IN THE V CENTURY BC - XVIII CENTURY
Since late 1970s the author began to study the geotectonic ideas of antiquity and Middle ages. In the mid - 1980s he came to a conclusion that only a thorough review and analyses of studies not only on natural philosophy, but also geographers, poets and play writers could give a chance for the complete understanding of the initial stages of geotectonic ideas.
Recently he began to study the initial phases of the geological ideas in Armenia, as well as the writings of Armenian historians, poets and novelists, foreign travellers who visited Armenia and studies of the historians of geography, devoted to the latters (J. Baker, I.Yu. Krachkovskij, I.P. Magidovich etc.). In 2013 appear the studies of D.Yu. Beknazaryan and R. Galichyan dealing with this problem. Strikingly, in any of these studies is mentioned Xanthus, the Lydian historian of the V century BC, the first researcher of Armenia, and some other authors. Due to the specialization of the present author (history of geology), we shall limit our survey with the description of travels which could be useful for the historians of geography for their studies in the future.
In the article we shall focus on 58 travellers, natural philosophers and historians who visited Armenia from the V century BC until the end of the XVIII century. The study reaches until early XIX century, since exactly beginning from this period (Caucasian expedition of A.A. Musin-Pushkin, studies by F. Dubois de Montpéreux and H. Abich) a thorough geographical and geological study of Armenia took place. In our study are emphasized those authors who wrote about the natural phenomena or to its natural resources. It should be mentioned that in most cases we do not possess with full texts of authors (a task that must be done in the future).
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