A staff of Armenian and European researchers has carried out the primary complete statistical evaluation of the vishaps, enigmatic prehistoric stelae generally known as “dragon stones” that rise within the highlands of Armenia. The outcomes, printed within the journal Npj Heritage Science, reveal that their development was an intentional and colossal effort, and that they had been deeply linked to an historical water cult.
The vishaps (Armenian time period for “dragon”) are prehistoric stone monuments carved with pictures of animals. They’re discovered within the excessive mountain pastures of present-day Armenia and adjoining areas, at altitudes starting from 1,000 to three,000 meters above sea stage. Carved from native stone, primarily andesite and basalt, these stelae are categorised into three foremost varieties:
- Piscis: Fish-shaped.
- Vellus: Formed like a stretched or hanging bovine cover.
- Hybrid: A mixture of the iconographies of the 2 earlier varieties.
With heights starting from 1.1 to five.5 meters, most lie in the present day toppled or positioned horizontally, however the truth that all of them are carved and polished on all sides aside from the “tail” strongly signifies that they had been initially erected vertically.
A century-old archaeological puzzle
Scientific curiosity within the vishaps arose within the early twentieth century. The scholar Ash-Kharbek Kalantar pioneered their research in an archaeological context and linked them with different megalithic phenomena. He was the one who launched an important speculation: that the vishaps marked essential factors in prehistoric irrigation methods.
Nonetheless, the systematic research of those monuments was restricted for many years. It was not till 2012 {that a} collaborative venture between the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Nationwide Academy of Sciences of Armenia, the Free College of Berlin, and Ca’ Foscari College of Venice resumed the analysis with fashionable strategies. The target: to unravel the operate and socioeconomic background of the vishap phenomenon by panorama surveys and stratigraphic excavations.
A key web site on this analysis has been Tirinkatar (also referred to as Karmir Sar), on the slopes of Mount Aragats, the place an distinctive focus of 12 of those stelae was found.
One of many best challenges has been figuring out when these stones had been erected. The historical past of their courting has gone by a number of phases. For a time, they had been thought of an “archaic” phenomenon. An important discovering was the Garni 1 stele, which bears a secondary Urartian cuneiform inscription of King Argishti I (eighth century BC), which positioned the vishaps, a minimum of of their reuse, within the second millennium BC.
However the definitive breakthrough got here with the excavations at Tirinkatar. Radiocarbon courting of 46 natural samples recovered in stratified contexts allowed, in two particular circumstances, the erection of two vishaps to be dated round 4200–4000 BC, that’s, within the Chalcolithic or Copper Age.
This implies that the vishaps are a product of this era, later reused and reinterpreted in varied methods in later instances. The Tirinkatar web site has thus been formed as a sacred cultural panorama with a rare focus of those monuments since a minimum of the late fifth millennium BC.
The evaluation: dimension, altitude, and an amazing labor effort
The brand new research focuses on the statistical evaluation of two bodily traits of 115 vishaps documented in Armenia: their dimension and the altitude at which they’re discovered.
The researchers began from a logical premise: the quantity of labor required to create a vishap—from quarrying the stone, carving and sprucing it, to transporting it—is proportional to its dimension. Bigger stones equate to a lot larger human effort. On the identical time, altitude drastically situations the time obtainable for work. Above 2,000 meters, the snow-free exercise window is significantly lowered, making any development venture far more tough.
The bigger vishaps would require larger processing time, particularly in areas the place the size of the snow-free interval decreases with growing altitude. Subsequently, one would anticipate that at larger altitudes, smaller vishaps can be discovered, the authors clarify. In different phrases, smaller vishaps can be anticipated at larger elevations, the place the time to work them was shorter.
Nonetheless, the outcomes contradicted this expectation. The evaluation confirmed no correlation between the scale of the vishaps and altitude. There isn’t a development indicating a lower within the variety of massive vishaps as elevation will increase. The truth is, a number of the largest and heaviest examples (equivalent to Karakap 3, weighing 4.3 tons) are discovered above 2,800 meters.
This implies that the builders deliberately devoted their restricted intervals of exercise within the larger areas to the development and transport of enormous monuments that required a lot manpower, the research notes, regardless of the added logistical difficulties, equivalent to offering meals and gasoline for the employees.
One other essential discovering was the altitude distribution of the vishaps. Removed from being evenly unfold, they present two very marked peaks or modes: one round 1,900 meters and one other, much more distinguished, round 2,700 meters above sea stage.
This bimodal distribution suggests a deliberate and structured placement sample, linked to particular cultural motivations and to not probability or easy useful resource availability. These two altitudes characterize two very totally different environmental realities when it comes to snow ranges and intervals of human exercise.
The water cult within the summits
All these clues—the affiliation with water, the fish shapes, the situation at excessive altitudes regardless of the price—level to the identical conclusion: the vishaps had been cult monuments devoted to water.
The pure motivation for putting the vishaps at larger altitudes could also be associated to the cult of water as a life-sustaining drive within the valleys positioned under, the authors conclude. The motivation was cultic. Positioning these monuments close to the summits, the principle snow reservoirs, had a profound symbolic and sensible which means. The water melting from these summits is what sustains life within the valleys, particularly throughout the sizzling and dry summer time months.
Kalantar’s speculation about their connection to prehistoric irrigation methods makes full sense right here. The vishaps wouldn’t solely be close to water, however would mark and sacralize the very origin of that important useful resource.
The double focus of stelae at 1,900 and a couple of,700 meters might be associated to patterns of seasonal migration or ritual pilgrimages to those sources of life within the heights. Areas equivalent to Mount Aragats and the Geghama Mountains, wealthy in water and archaeological monuments, distinction with others equivalent to Mount Ararat, with porous soils and scarce water sources, the place cultural stays are a lot rarer.
The research culminates with a mirrored image: Human historical past exhibits that cults are sometimes related to vital efforts by their societies.
The evaluation of Armenia’s dragon stones goes past archaeology to delve into the psychology and group of the primary complicated societies. It reveals that, greater than 6,000 years in the past, the communities of the Armenian highlands had been keen to take a position an infinite quantity of vitality and sources in an apparently non-utilitarian venture.
However it was not arbitrary: it was an funding of their worldview, within the sacralization of the component that assured their survival—water. The placement, dimension, and form of the vishaps are usually not unintended; they’re the petrified proof of a deeply rooted perception that mobilized a complete group towards the summits, defying the logic of minimal effort, to erect everlasting witnesses of their religion within the sources of life.
SOURCES
Gurzadyan, V., Bobokhyan, A. Vishap stelae as cult devoted prehistoric monuments of Armenian Highlands: information evaluation and interpretation. npj Herit. Sci. 13, 435 (2025). doi.org/10.1038/s40494-025-01998-z
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