Melik

Мelik (Armenian: մելիք, romanized: melik’, from Arabic: ملك, romanized: malik, lit. 'king') was a hereditary Armenian noble title used in Eastern Armenia from the Late Middle Ages until the nineteenth century. The meliks represented some of the last remnants of the old Armenian nobility, as well as Persian nobility in Shirvan and other areas of the Persian Empire. The most prominent and powerful meliks were those of Karabagh (Artsakh) and Syunik, which ruled autonomous or semi-autonomous principalities known as melikdoms (Armenian: մելիքություն, romanized: melik’ut’yun) under Iranian suzerainty. Meliks also existed in Yerevan, Nakhichevan, Sevan, Lori, Northwestern Persia, and other areas, although outside of Karabagh and Syunik most were merely hereditary leaders of local Armenian communi...