ARMENIAN HIGHLAND

As we noted the recent sensational discoveries at Göbekli Tepe by the European archaeological team [published in the August 2000 issue of the German scientific magazine Bild Der Wissenschaft] showed that architectural structures, including such advanced complex manifestations such as temples and palaces, and for the time period [9th millennium BC!] very elaborate carvings and sculptures that adorn the cult temples and are in the vicinity of the historic site are carbon dated to 9, 000 BC -- that is -- 11,000 years ago! The article in the prestigious scientific magazine entitled 6,000 Years before the Pyramids! describes in detail the world's oldest temple located in historic Armenia. In addition to these very important finds, the recent sensational discovery of the Temple City in the Aragatsotn Marz of Armenia, by a team of archaeologists from the Academy of Sciences was astounding. The Temple City covers dozens of acres of land and the archaeologists have estimated that it will take about 30 years to fully excavate the whole complex. While exploring the rocks in the canyon of the river Kasakh a group of Armenian and French archaeologists found a monument from the Mesolithic era [Epipaleolith] quite unique for the Caucasus and Near East. The excavations were led by Boris Gasparyan, the head of the archaeological team from the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia.

Another group is examining the rock paintings found in the cave Geghamavan I, 1 km of the Kmlo caves. The unique paintings are in ochre - a substance said to be used only in late Eneolith and early bronze (IV-III). Meanwhile the Geghamavan I paintings date back from the Neolith. The Neolithic man of Gheghama, Syunik and Aragats had already mastered the linear drawing technique. The paintings depict various animals most prominently deer. The findings have shown that the rock painting traditions widely presented in the mountains are older than they were thought to be.

Found in the Kmlo caves near the village of Apna, of the Aragatson region, were not only fragments of obsidian tools but also a wild wheat grain dating back from a period 10,000-8,000 years ago. The dating confirmed that the grain samples are the oldest found throughout the region's Mesolithic monuments that are carbon dated to 11,000-10,000 BC.

These promising new discoveries add to the important findings of Metsamor that revealed the earliest metal smelting foundries of the ancient world. In the November 2003 issue, the prestigious scientific magazine Nature published an article by scholars Dr. Russell D. Gray and Dr. Quentin D. Atkinson [11.27.2003] verifying the origin (13 years after the publication by the Scientific American of Indo-Europeanist linguists -- Dr. Vyacheslav Ivanov's and Dr. Thomas Gamkrelidze's detailed work on the origins of The Indo-European Language and the Indo-Europeans firmly established that Armenia is in fact the Indo-European Homeland. This was further proved by the Indo-Europeanist scholars who come to the conclusion of the Indo-European origin in the Armenian Plateau and the immediate nearby areas by using the empiric method based on the "analysis of a matrix of 87 languages with 2,449 lexical items produced an estimated age range for the initial Indo-European divergence of between 7,800 and 9,800 years BP. These results were robust to changes in coding procedures, calibration points, rooting of the trees and priors in the bayesian analysis...the finding hints that farmers in -- what is now Turkey -- [and is in fact historically, ethnically and linguistically Indo-European Armenia - Mitanni - Armenian Plateau. HOLY ARARAT is also today in "what is today Turkey" -- historic Armenia cleansed of its native population through a horrific Genocide -- nevertheless ARARAT will eternally stand for Truth, for Armenia and for the Armenian people...] drove the language boom - and not later Siberian horsemen, as some linguists reckon." [read more about these very important finds in the November 2003 issue of Nature magazine].

By the fifth millennium BC, Armenians combined sun worship with sophisticated astronomy. They are now credited with assigning the constellations of the zodiac their design and names, and creating one of the first solar calendars based on 365 days in the year. Also, around the fifth millennium BC a series of Vishaps -- Dragon Stones, began to be erected on mountainsides throughout Armenia, near water sources. At first resembling the sacred fish-God [dragons in Armenian were thought to be huge fishlike creatures] the monolithic stones were later carved with snakes, the heads of beasts, swastikas and crosses.

Rick Ney, the author who wrote the first multi-media complete guide of Armenia [see Tour Armenia Central -- tacentral.com], wrote about the phenomenal findings of Karahundj [translation -- Stonehenge... however, -- thousands of years older that the henge in England] about archeological monuments in Armenia dating back to 9000 BC! He points out that "Armenia, contains some of the most significant cultural examples of sacred geometry. Who were the first astronomers? If proven true, a current controversial dating of the stones at Karahundj predate England's Stonehenge, they predate the Babylonian's claim to being the first astronomers, and they confirm what some people already suspect: that Armenia is the birthplace of the zodiac, and perhaps the beginning of navigation and the concept of time...It should be no surprise to anyone who knows something of Armenia's history that astronomy is such an important part of the national character. Sun symbols, signs of the zodiac, and ancient calendars predominated in the region while the rest of the world was just coming alive, culturally speaking. Egypt and China were still untamed wilderness areas when the first cosmic symbols began appearing on the side of the Geghama Mountain Range around 7000 BC. At Metsamor (ca. 5000 BC), one of the oldest observatories in the world can be found...ancestral Armenians were indeed navigators, they had an intimate understanding of the stars, how to plot latitude and longitude, even how to divide time." [to read the rest of this valuable article by Rick Ney go to -- astrologycom.com -- and search 'Armenia']. This means that the ancestral Armenians had astronomical lists going back at least to the Age of Leo. They developed the zodiac system and it clearly took thousands of years of recorded observations giving plenty of time to find the only logical starting point -- the perfect defining point...

A Seven branched candle vessel from the Metsamor dig. Second Millennium B.C.
Seven was the sacred number of the great Metsamor astrologers who among other things associated the number 7 with the known planets [accordingly their influences being septenary]. Later the Seven branched Tree of Life [that in another earlier variant has has five branches or four + one] or the Cosmic Tree in ancient Armenian representations evolved into a 9 branched Tree of Life [symbolic of the nine planets].

On the Metsamor Hill a clay tablet with hieroglyphs belonging to the II millennium BC was discovered in 1963. Thus, it was established that before the appearance of the cuneiforms of Ararat, the inhabitants of the Armenian highlands used picture writing. And here is what is amazing: throughout the ancient world and up to our times, the designations of the twelve constellations of the zodiac almost completely coincide with the ancient Armenian hieroglyphs.

As the greatest historians of astronomy -- Mounder, Svarz and Flamarion -- considered that "the people who divided the heavens into constellations, lived between latitudes 36 and 42 degrees North..." - the precise geographic axis of the Armenian Plateau. While the English astronomer, W. Olcott, directly states that, in his opinion "the people, who divided the heavens into constellations, in all probability lived in the Euphrates Valley and also in the region of the Ararat Mountain."

A DECORATED SILVER BOWL
HRAZDAN [HURASTAN -- LAND OF THE FIRE].
THIRD MILLENNIUM BC.

Historian Melkon Khandjian sums up several key aspects of Armenia as the Cradle of Civilization in The Evolution of Armenian and World Alphabets -- 'Astounding archaeological discoveries and scientific research in Armenia in the second half of the twentieth century have established the Armenian Highland as the cradle of human civilization. With a unique and indigenous culture, her contributions of universal magnitude have decisively shaped the course of history and human destiny. After two billion years of evolutionary progress from pre-human species, the modern physical man appeared about 50,000 years ago. Although the origins of civilization are complex, yet modern investigations agree that the foundations of civilization building began about 9000 BC. Through the Neolithic Revolution in the highlands of Armenia. Here for the first time man cultivated wheat and barley and domesticated the goat, sheep, and cattle: species of plants and animals the wild ancestors of which were native to this region. Thus, the savage hunting and food-gathering man transformed into sedentary village-city life, and through the control of his food production and acquisition of more leisure time, mankind diverted his energy and intellect to civilization making through economic, technological, religious, social, and political developments, Following the Agricultural and Animal Husbandry Revolutions, major developments followed. First, pottery making was discovered in western Armenia about 7000 BC, making possible the storage of surplus foodstuff.

Next emerged the Technological Revolution, in the vicinity of Lake Van in Armenia, when after a million and a half years of Stone Age subculture, the native volcanic gloss known as obsidian was used and later exported as a material from which sharp edged and superior tools were manufactured -- between 6500 and 4000 before the birth of Christ -- Armenian tribesmen carried on a thriving trade by supplying obsidian to Near Eastern lands. This traffic set in motion the beginnings of trade and commerce, and an advanced communication system, which initiated the diffusion, and exchange of economic, cultural, and urban advances among the ancients. Thereafter, in the metal fusing Armenian highlands emerged the Metallurgical Age, when the Armenian highlander natives discovered the technique of cold working with (8000 BC) and smelting of (5000 BC) copper, and later the manufacture of bronze by the addition of tin. All evidences confirm Armenia was also the birthplace for silver, brass, and iron, and her riverbeds and mines the source for ancient gold. Although meteoric iron had been in use since 2500 BC the true Iron Age begins about 1400 BC, when some Armenian smelters learned how to make steel from wrought iron: a secret closely guarded by the Armenian masters for centuries. In 1963, the world's oldest metallurgical factory was excavated at Metsamor in eastern Armenia, carbon dated to beyond 4000 years ago and containing over 200 furnaces!

Although wheels and carriages had been known for some time, the invention of the first practical wheeled vehicles -- the cart and the chariot -- took place in the vicinity of Lchashen, near Lake Sevan in eastern Armenia circa 3000 BC. After taming of the horse around 2500 BC, this swift animal of the Armenian rider replaced the slower moving oxen as the driving power of the cart, the chariot and the legendary Armenian mounted warrior nobility. The development of the lightweight, horse drown chariot revolutionized long distance transport and warfare, which under the Hyksos in 1730 BC, made possible the establishment of the world's first empire. Of paramount importance to the evolution of religion and political and social order is the birth of astrology -- the understanding of the movements of the heavenly bodies and their relationship to earth and its life cycles. Modern research concludes that since the Zodiac signs represent animals native only to ancient Armenia and east Asia Minor, and that the arrangement of the stars in the constellation are such as if viewed from an area around the 40th parallel; therefore, the sciences of astrology, as well as alchemy and medicine, have their origins in Armenia. The recent archaeological discoveries in Armenia of 5000-year-old triangular, three story astronomical observatory where the star Sirius was worshipped [carried over to Egypt] adds strength to the above conclusion. Ancient peoples believed that the mankind evolved in Armenia, built a High Civilization, and was later destroyed by a great flood. This Civilization was diffused to all directions of the world. Modern geology confirms that a catastrophic huge flood took place covering much of the region under water. Mythology and traditions of nations of antiquity confirm this belief. The Bible, based on the very ancient accounts accounted the Garden of Eden [Tree of Life and Wisdom] in Armenia and the genesis of human races around the sacred Mountains of Ararat -- the land of the Gods -- where Gilgamesh came to find Immortality and where according to the Biblical account the Noah’s Ark landed -- and thus began the Rebirth and Renewal of Humanity -- a New Beginning -- the circle was thus complete -- returning to the sacred starting point in the Armenian Highland.