Anania Shirakatsi

Anania Shirakatsi
1963 statue of Anania Shirakatsi holding a globe at the entrance of the Matenadaran
Born	c. 610 Shirak, Ayrarat,[1] Sasanian Armenia
Died	c. 685 (aged around 75) Arminiya
Nationality	Armenian
Era	Early Middle Ages
School	Hellenizing School
Main interests	Mathematics, astronomy, geography, chronology

Anania Shirakatsi (Old Armenian: Անանիա Շիրակացի, Anania Širakac’i, anglicized: Ananias of Shirak) was a 7th-century Armenian polymath and natural philosopher, author of extant works covering mathematics, astronomy, geography, chronology, and other fields. Little is known for certain of his life outside of his own writings, but he is considered the father of the exact and natural sciences in Armenia—the first Armenian mathematician, astronomer,^[2][3] and cosmographer.^[4]

A part of the Armenian Hellenizing School and one of the few secular scholars in medieval Armenia, Anania was educated primarily by Tychicus, in Trebizond. He composed science textbooks and the first known geographic work in classical Armenian (Ashkharhatsuyts),^[5] which provides detailed information about Greater Armenia, Persia and the Caucasus (Georgia and Caucasian Albania).

In mathematics, his accomplishments include the earliest known table of results of the four basic operations,^[3][6] the earliest known collection of recreational math puzzles and problems,^[7] and the earliest book of math problems in Armenian.^[8] He also devised a system of mathematical notation based on the Armenian alphabet, although he was the only writer known to have used it.