Armenia,Cradle of Civilization

Ararat was simply the Hebrew version of the Assyrian name, Urartu, a name which only goes back to the mid-13th century BC to the form Uruatri.  Hence, any supposed similarities is only in the imagination of theorist.  Aratta, on the other hand is only attested in the third millennium BC.

The epics never state that Aratta was the land of their origin, or that the Arattans were their ancestors, and it was not the "epic poems of Gilgamesh" that deal with the subject of Aratta, but the "epic poems of Enmerkar" one of Gilgamesh's predecessors to the throne of Uruk.

We know that according to the description of the journey to Aratta from Uruk in the three epics which comprise the "Enmerkar Cycle",  Aratta was located beyond "seven mountains" which ranged about the land of Anshan.  Since we know that Anshan was in Iran, specifically to the north of Elam, the "seven mountains" must be the Zagros.  Aratta was beyond the Zagros Mts.  The problem is that we don't know if Aratta was located in northern Iran, central Iran, or southern Iran.  The excavations at Jiroft seem to show some promise as the probable site of this civilization.

Again, there is no language in the epics which makes Aratta, "ancestral" or "close" in connection to Sumer.  What we do gain from the epics is that some of the same deities were worshipped and that (at least in one of the epics) the ruler of Aratta bore a Sumerian name.  The problem with such information is that it may just be a literary device.  In either case nothing suggests that Aratta and Uruk had a common ancestry.

As for "many historians and archaeologists", this statement seems rather as too optimistic a statement.  It may be that there was a tendency to look for Sumerian origins in the Hassuna Culture of northern Mesopotamia which according to the old theory gave rise to the Samarra Culture (c. 5700-4900 BC) of the Diyala Region, but the tendency now is to find Sumerian cultural roots in the Kermanshah Culture (c. 7500-5600 BC) of western Iran. 

 Maju wrote-

 El Ubayd (c. 4800-3750): potters wheel!  

    You are saying potters wheel Introduced into mesapotamia, not invented there, certainly.   

      Still open,  3-4 camps, mesopotamia, china, crete and at least one other.   I'm in the China camp.

      BTW= it's good to know I'm not the only one, must be the weather change

      Notice I said, "still open". This is and probably always will be disputed. You can't go by the neat little time lines museums and others have assembled, there are too many overlapping and too many other factors involved. 

       I am running short on time right now but will come back to this later. I'll leave you with this, I have held pieces dated to at least 3500 bce and there was no doubt in my mind that they were wheel thrown.  

     This is one of those subjects that potters argue about, usually after a few libations.  It was late, I was bored, not the slightest bit sleepy, and I saw an opportunity to draw you into a discussion, which you apparently saw thru.  

       There isn't a clear answer, the influencing factors are many and varied, technique-direct lump forming versus coil and throw, definition of type of wheel, fast wheel, what is etc. 

        some one always brings up the question of a culture having or not having the wheel as in carts,wagons etc.  and someone counters that a potters wheel could exist without that technology being applied to something else.

         The problem is that there are no writings or images referring to the wheel in China as early as I am referring to.  There are I believe, in Mesopotamia, as there are in Egypt as well.

Sharrukin refers to the lung-shan culture at 2600 bce but some sources give 3200 and others 3500, overlapping with the northwestern culture whose name escapes me.[ Yangshao-5000-1500bce]

           It is not a matter that will ever be solved and fortunately, not that important. 

  Now who's trying to draw someone in?   It's my turn to be tired and for tonight I'll have to let it go, but I see a thread on this soon.