Thursday, April 8 2021 12:36

ArmInfo. New finds from the Urartu period have been discovered in the territory adjacent to the "Karmir Bloor" (Red Hill). This is reported by the press service of  the Yerevan Municipality.

"This is a fragment of a pitcher with a boring and patterns with  sequins. We have various fragments of local Urartian bowls and jars.  Most of the material we found belongs to the VII century BC, some  samples date back to the VII-VI centuries BC, " says Mikael Badalyan,  director of the Historical and Archaeological Museum-Reserve  "Erebuni".

It is also reported that for several days now, excavations have begun  in the area of the ancient "Karmir Bloor" historical and  archaeological reserve-museum "Erebuni". During the construction of  the Argavand-Shirak section of the Yerevan ring road, the experts did  not leave the fragments of ceramics unnoticed, and the work was  immediately stopped. The Ministry of Education and Science has given  permission for urgent excavations.

"In the upper part, we found traces of a building. This is indicated  by the location of the stones. If we look closely, we will see 3  stones lined up in a single line. It can be a tomb, a wall, or  another structure. Of course, people will look and not understand,  but this is very important from an archaeological point of view,"  said Mikael Badalyan.

Excavations on the territory adjacent to the new road will continue.  This year, excavations will also be carried out to the right of the  main entrance to the territory of the ancient settlement. The wall of  the Ararat Kingdom was first noticed by the employees of the  territory.

He also said that the fragments found will add to the exhibits of the  Erebuni Museum of the Urartu period.  Karmir-Bloor is a hill located  in Armenia, in the west of Yerevan on the left bank of the Hrazdan  River. The remains of ancient settlements, including the Urartian  fortress city of Teishebaini, have been found on Karmir Bloor.  Karmir-Bloor attracted the attention of archaeologists in 1936, when  geologist A. P. 

Demekhin, who studied the basalts of the Hrazdan River, discovered a  fragment of stone with a cuneiform inscription on the top of the  hill. Subsequent exploratory archaeological work immediately revealed  an extensive ancient settlement. Since 1939, Karmir Bloor has been  the subject of systematic archaeological excavations.

The Urartian fortress city of Teishebaini was located on Karmir-Bloor  in the VII-VI centuries BC, and in the XIII-VIII centuries BC there  were pre-Urartian settlements of the Eneolithic and Early Bronze Age.  Pre-Urartian settlements were buildings, sometimes round, more often  rectangular in shape. In the dwellings there were grain pits and  large anthropomorphic stone deities, apparently symbols of the  fertility of the land. The pre-Urartian settlement on Karmir-Bloor is  similar to the Eneolithic settlement located on the left bank of the  Hrazdan River near the village of Shengavit and probably belonged to  the "Aza country" mentioned in the Urartian chronicles. The  pre-Urartian settlement on Karmir-Bloor was burned and destroyed,  apparently, during the expansion of Urartu in Transcaucasia under  King Argishti I. After that, the settlement was in an abandoned state  for about a hundred years, until another Urartian king, Rusa II,  built a Urartian fortress city on this site. In the VI century BC,  the fortress was captured and burned probably by the Scythians.  Reddened brick after the fire may have been the reason for the name  of the hill.