Zorats Karer (Karahunj)

Zorats Karer, also known as Karahunj, is a megalithic complex on a plateau north of the town of Sisian, at an altitude of about 1,770 metres. Over an area of several hectares more than two hundred vertical basalt blocks up to three metres high stand here; in roughly eighty of them, holes a few centimetres wide are drilled right through the upper part. The stones form an elongated central group with a burial field and arms running out from it, so that from above the pattern resembles an elongated letter. The age of the monument has not been established exactly: finds in the burials inside the complex place it at least in the second millennium BC, while individual researchers speak of an earlier date. The purpose of the holes is disputed as well: some see an ancient observatory and connect the alignments with the rising of heavenly bodies, others take the holes for fixings for awnings or traps. The name is translated as "stones of the warriors", and local tradition linked the field with the burials of the fallen. Bare steppe spreads all around, and the snowy ranges of Zangezur stand on the horizon.

Address

Սիսիան-Իշխանասար մայրուղի, Sisian

On the map