Armenia’s Zorats Karer Site an Intriguing Mystery

Zorats Karer, according to Smithsonian.com, ” consists of a prehistoric mausoleum and nearby, over two hundred neighboring large stone monoliths, eighty of which have distinctive, well-polished holes bored near their upper edge.” The site has probably been inhabited on-and-off from the prehistoric to medieval civilizations.

Located in the continent of Asia, Armenia covers 28,203 square kilometers of land and 1,540 square kilometers of water, making it the 144th largest nation in the world with a total area of 29,743 square kilometers, according to the World Atlas.

Helicopter image of Karahundj

Tourist agencies may plug the site as the Armenian Stonehenge but the resemblance is superficial.  According to Professor Pavel Avetisyan, an archaeologist at the National Academy of Sciences in Armenia, “was mainly a necropolis from the Middle Bronze Age (1,500 to 1,200 BC) to the Iron Age (around 600 to 900 BC ). Enormous stone tombs of these periods can be found within the area.”

Avetisyan’s team dates the monument to no older than 2000 BCE, after Stonehenge, and also suggests that it served as a refuge during times of war in the Hellenistic period (332 BC to 32 BC), reports Smithsonian.com.

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/unraveling-mystery-armenian-stonehenge-180964207/#iKZtX5VAL4JSUGJW.99

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