YEREVAN. - During the excavations in Armenia supposedly ritual constructions have for the first time been found along with the sepulchers dating from the 1st half of the third millennia BC.

Director of Armenia’s Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Pavel Avetisyan, said the aforementioned at a press-conference on Thursday.

In his words, during the excavation in Gegharot site, semi-circular concentric constructions were found along with sepulchers, but it is still necessary to determine their function. Since they are located by the sepulchers, they can be supposed to have a religious significance.  

Pavel Avetisyan noted that Bronze Age sepulchers can also be found in the territory of Georgia, South Caucasus, as well as Iran and Turkey, but this is the first time the constructions have been found near tombs: this is a serious phenomenon which has to be studied.  

According to the Director of the Institute, the field work was launched in June, and it is still underway in certain sites. The expeditions are working all over Armenia.  

In particular, great volume of work was carried out in the site called Solak 1 – a castle of Van kingdom period.  The debris of the castle excavated here repeat the planning of other Urartian palaces, specifically Teishebaini. However, local construction material was used here instead of the Urartian ones, this being quite an interesting opening for archaeologists.