WHERE IS THE “ARMENIAN STONEHENGE”

The small town of Sisian, which is comfortably located on the slopes of the Vorotan River, lies in a small bowl, which is surrounded on all sides by dense forests, smoothly turning into green mountain slopes. In summer, Sisian blooms with bright colors of mountain flowers, neatly framed by emerald expanses of rugged slopes. Winter paints the natural frame of the city with the untouched whiteness of snow, outlined by clear black lines of the trunks of trees that have lost their leaves. Sisian is located about two hundred kilometers from Yerevan. So if you would like to find yourself in this picturesque place, you only need to take a short flight with Uzbekistan Airways to the capital of Armenia, and then rent a car or book a transfer from one of the tour operators in Armenia. To get there, you need to take the road towards Meghri. The city itself is located quite high in the foothills, about one and a half kilometers above sea level. Today, about 15 thousand people live here. Despite its modest size, Sisian boasts two museums, an archaeological and an ethnographic one, and a picturesque building of an ancient church, which was built in the seventh century AD. However, people most often come here to see the picturesque sights located in the immediate vicinity of the city, and not in the settlement itself. There are such unique objects here that you will not find analogues even during your vacation in Uzbekistan.

Travelers are often directed to the Shaki waterfall. This is an amazing natural spectacle, mesmerizing with streams of water that noisily fall from a height of forty meters in a billion sparkling splashes. The waterfall is located to the north of the city and divides the Shaki River, a tributary of the Vorotan, into two parts with a shining arc. The blue ribbon looks especially bright against the black rocks of the narrow gorge. The entire wall near the waterfall is covered with holes, grottoes and shallow caves. After archaeological excavations that took place near the waterfall, it turned out that people once lived in these caves and even left numerous traces of their stay in these cold dwellings as a keepsake for their descendants. Most likely, they were representatives of the Stone Age. The Shaki waterfall is a real find not only for inquisitive travelers, but also for avid photographers – the composition of dark rocks, caves, streams of water and pearl dust looks so picturesque.

The Sisian Church, which was built in the 7th century by order of Prince Koazot, is located in the northwestern part of the modern city. Cultural experts unmistakably define it as a cross-domed building. The building itself is made in the shape of a cross, and is crowned with a dome cone, typical of Armenian religious architecture. Incidentally, it consists of twelve faces, which is quite a rare phenomenon. Despite the fact that no active reconstruction work was carried out in the temple, the building itself has been preserved surprisingly well. The rich wall paintings inside the church have survived almost untouched to this day. The temple land was given over to cemeteries, and burials have been carried out here since ancient times. Therefore, even this small piece of land can be classified as a cultural monument – here you can find several amazingly beautiful khachkars – stone steles with the image of a cross and decorated with complex ornaments.

And if you drive twenty kilometers from the city, you can study the petroglyphs of Ukhtasar, which appeared here in ancient times. The petroglyphs were named after the mountain at the foot of which they were discovered. Moreover, the name speaks for itself, the silhouette of the ridge resembles a camel, and in Armenian the name of this animal sounds like ukht. Most likely, the drawings were carved into the rock strata somewhere between the fifth and second centuries BC. Here you can find bright pictures telling about the daily life of the tribe that decided to leave a memory of itself on the walls, images telling about hunting, scenes of great celebrations and rituals.

But the most striking attraction of these places, without any doubt, can be called Karahunj, or as it is also called Zorats-Karer. It is located a little higher in the mountains, three kilometers from modern Sisian. This is an amazing plateau covered with stones, and the general harmonious picture of the location of these blocks is not immediately revealed. When Zorats-Karer arose is also unknown to this day. Historians do not tire of arguing, attributing the construction of the rock monument to the fifth millennium BC, then the third, then the second. The stone forest covers an area of ​​approximately seven hectares, with approximately 220 stones scattered around it, each about two meters high on average. The stones are decorated with holes located at the top of the obelisks, and some have more than one. The holes are remarkable, their radius varies near the surface of the obelisk and in its interior. It seems as if the stone was drilled from both sides at the same time, which is why some of the holes are not very even.

Many researchers compare Zorats Karer with similar structures in England and France (Stonehenge and Karnak) and attribute to it the function of an observatory, the oldest in the world. And the presence of holes in the stones, according to this theory, is intended to help observers study the stars and other celestial bodies.

However, not all archaeologists and historians agree with this. Thus, according to some researchers, the inner part of the holes has been preserved much better than the stones, and therefore, was made later. Since the stones are located in high-mountain pastures, they could have served for some time as a border for pens, and ropes or net fastenings were threaded through the holes so that the zealous cattle would not run away. Others believe that ancient people managed to embody a map of the starry sky in the stones, and therefore the complex itself served primarily as a scientific, astronomical and cult structure for various rituals. Others, relying on the fact that an ancient burial mound with an unknown burial was also found on the territory, suggest that Zorats Karer is an ancient necropolis of the famous leader, and one of his warriors was buried under each stele. Zorats Karer is an extremely mysterious phenomenon and currently raises more questions than it answers. None of the hypotheses has yet received definitive confirmation and irrefutable evidence. The place itself still worries the minds of many researchers around the world. The latest expedition, which was organized in 2010 by the Royal Geographical Society of Great Britain and Oxford University, after a detailed study of the site and the compilation of a modern three-dimensional map (3D plan), is inclined to believe that we are dealing with an observatory. Perhaps the next expeditions will be able to add something new and shed light on the mystery of the amazing Karahunj.

Are you staying in Sisian? No problem, here you can find several hotels in Armenia, not the worst in the country, spend the night, and only in the morning go further – the roads of Armenia are not conducive to comfortable movement on them at night.