Armenia

Some of the world’s earliest settlements, dating from around 6200 BC, were built on the Armenian plateau, part of the ‘fertile crescent’ encompassing Anatolia, Mesopotamia and the Levant. Independent culture and language developed, and trade flourished with neighbouring civilizations. By 900 BC the kingdom of Urartu had taken root, centred on Lake Van (now in Turkey), until falling to the Assyrian and Scythian empires in the 6th century BC.