Mamikonyanlar

• The Princes Mamikonian (the Mamikonids) claimed descent from the Emperors of China and bore the gentilitial title of Chenbakur, but appear to have been the immemorial dynasts of Tayk', on the Armeno-Georgian confines, possibly of Georgian origin; at any rate, the Mamikonid onomastics, and the dynastic patronymic in the first place, betray a Georgian connexion (Cyril Toumanoff, Studies in Christian Caucasian History, p. 209).
• The imperial Chinese origin of the Mamikonids is asserted by Faustus, 5.4, 37, Sebēos, 2, and by Ps. Moses, 2.81, the latter two indicating that the title borne by their imperial ancestors was čen-bakur. The first element of that title is the ethnicon 'Chinese', the second, a rendering of the Iranian bağpūr, itself a translation of the Chinese Imperial title of t’ien-tzu ('Son of Heaven'): Markwart, Streifzüge 133—134; Süd-armenien 77-78 (the thought, however, that it was the King of the Kushans, who also entitled himself 'Son of Heaven' [devaputra], and not the Emperor of China who was meant here); Justi, Namenbuch 240. Actually, the Georgian origin of the Mamikonids seems more likely. In the first place, they were dynasts of the proto-Caucasian and half-Georgian Tayk'; in the second, there are philological data to support it. The basic element of their nomen gentilicium and most likely their gentilitial title, mamik or mamak, is a composite of the Armenian diminutive suffix -ik/-ak and the Georgian word mama or 'father': Adontz, Armenija 402—403, 405. Also, the praenomen Mušeł, found among them, is a Georgian territorial epithet, formed with the addition of the Georgian suffix -el (Armenianized as -eł) to the name of the chief city of Tarawn, Muš: Adontz, op. cit. 398; Markwart, Süd-armenien 157 n. 1. Adontz explained the Chinese tradition by a confusion, prompted by the love of exotic origins, between the ethnicon čen and that of the Georgian Čan-ians (Tzanni) or Lazi (for whom, see I at n. 55; Gugushvili, Division 56, 64), who were settled in the neighbourhood of Tayk'. … The two Mamikonid princely Houses of Georgia and the Russian Empire are the Liparitids and the T’umanids. The former appeared in Iberia c. 876; was invested with the office of High Constable of Georgia; returned, in the main branch, to Armenia in 1177, or possibly even earlier; and reigned as the Third Dynasty of Siunia [25] from c. 1200 to the mid-fifteenth century. It was subdivided, in the remaining Georgian branch, into the following houses: Jambakur(ian) [= čenbakur]-Orbeliani, Barat’ašvili, Solağašvili, Kaxaberije-Čiĵavaje, and possibly Abašije. … The other house of T’umanids, removed to Georgia from Armenia-in-Exille (Cilicia) after the twelfth century: Fifteenth Cent. Bagr. 179 n. 59; Spiski 83-85; Dolgorukov III 483; GHA(f) 2 (1953) 471; cf. Zacharias the Deacon, Sofis 48. (Cyril Toumanoff, Studies in Christian Caucasian History, p. 211—212, n. 238).