We visited Armenia for the first time back in 2017. We wanted to have fun, relax, and research some archaeoastronomical sites we have read and planned to include in our forthcoming book The sky of stone (in Romanian: Cerul de piatră). The book was printed a year later, in 2018 at the West University of Timisoara Publishing House. And we loved the country so much that we decided to revisit the place next year and to organize an archaeoastronomical tour in 2019. It would be the first time we organized anything of this magnitude, as we usually just planned adventures for ourselves. We wanted to take there people interested in adventure and mysterious places. But let’s start from the beginning.
2017 – First contact with an amazing world
When we decided to go to Armenia we planned for a 9-day itinerary and searched for a tour company with knowledge in archaeology as we wanted to get the most out of it. After doing some research I found a small company run by young archaeologists. It was there that we met Levon and Hayk, our fantastic guides and friends. Together with Levon, we refined my initial plan. The tour was intense and we booked a flight From Budapest to Yerevan via Krakow for 27 July with a return on 11 August. As we found out later, LOT airlines are not the best company to fly with as their flights usually get delayed and canceled without notice as happened to us in both cases. But we didn’t have many available choices at that time.
Armenians are some of the most welcoming people we have ever seen. Hayk waited for us in at the airport patiently after our flight got delayed for about two hours and we arrived at around 3 AM. What followed is the stuff of legends. A 9-day packed with sites to visit trip where we saw megaliths, petroglyphs, temples, mysterious constructions, and beautiful Yerevan. Below is our itinerary.
As always we used most of the time we had to explore and take measurements knowing that little was published about the megaliths of Armenia and their astronomical significance. The highlight was the little-known Hartashen megalithic complex.
By the way, if you ever stumble over the image below, that’s Marc walking along the Hartashen megaliths :). It has been spotted circulating the Internet and seen on Armenian travel blogs and Facebook pages.
2018 – Gyurza! Adventure in the highlands
Our enthusiasm for the first trip made us consider returning next year, especially since I discovered some sites that I wanted to analyze from an archaeoastronomical perspective. So, in 2018, we returned, this time for a shorter time and focusing on two main sites: Sevsar and Muradsar. In addition, Marc wanted to climb Mt Aragats, Armenia’s tallest mountain. Needless to say that we flew with LOT airlines again…
Things worked well. We booked a room at the usual hotel in Yerevan but a couple of days into the visit Marc got sick and had to stay in the hotel room with flu-like symptoms for 2 days. But it all paid out as we traveled to Muradsar high in the mountains with equipment rented with the help of our friend Levon. While most Armenians do not speak English you can always find other ways of communicating including drawings and gestures. We laugh now years later as we remember our driver shouting at Marc on our way in an old 4×4 Lada high in the mountains Gyurza, Gyurza! (a type of large viper) bathing in the Sun by the dirt road. Having no idea what was happening, Marc was searching for clothes or objects in the back of the car to hand him over. Moments later we realized the driver was pointing us at the large snake! One thing that we learned about Armenia’s mountains is that it always rains in the afternoon and our visit there was no exception. Packed with the wrong tent we froze the whole night soaking wet and packed together. But it didn’t matter as we were there all alone and eager to take some archaeoastronomical measurements that were published in a peer-reviewed journal.
A Possible Pastoral Calendar and Ritual Site was published in the Journal of Skyscape Archaeology in 2019.
But it was not all, Simina found a beautiful idol that also appears in the article. On our way back we rushed (more like flew) back to Yerevan in a packed small marshrutka bus. The next stop was Sevsar, where we studied the mysterious isolated petroglyph and published another peer-reviewed article about a Revisiting Sevsar: Towards a Possible Gnomon the Armenian Highlands.
The second visit ended with a hike to the West peak of Mt Aragats (2nd highest – the volcano has four with the North peak being the tallest) together with a Japanese embassy official that happened to take the same tour as Marc. The success was accompanied by a shot of vodka right on top!
2019 – The adventure tour
No sooner than getting back from the second visit and we started planning with Levon our group adventure for 2019. The plan was to take a group of enthusiasts, not afraid of sleeping in tents and off-road driving to the most interesting places around summer solstice 2019. This time we took a direct flight from Bucharest to Yerevan with the Romanian TAROM company, which unfortunately does not operate that segment anymore. The highlights of the tour were the National Archaeological Museum in Yerevan, a night in the tent near the Karahunj megalithic complex (the Armenian Stonehenge) to witness the summer solstice sunrise, a 4×4 drive to the Ughtasar petroglyphs and volcanic cones, the Sevsar petroglyph, the Harthashen megaliths, and a couple of days working as archaeologists.
But one of the surprises in the tour was the discovery by one of the participants of an ancient hearth during the dig.
But enough words, check out some images below:
An amazing tour that left us craving for more. For the Spring of 2020, we had planned an archaeoastronomical tour in the Canaries (La Palma) but it was canceled due to the covid pandemic. It is still on the backburner but right now we are planning other adventures so stay tuned, you might like one and join us!
If you enjoyed this post consider following us on Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter or donating on Patreon. Also, stay tuned for public events Marc hosts regularly on Eventbrite.
