Karashamb Necropolis (2014-2015)

The necropolis of Karashamb is located about 1.5 km south of Karashamb village, on the right bank of the Hrazdan Gorge. Archaeologists have revealed a vast burial site which was in use from the Middle Bronze Age through the Iron Age (ca. 2400 BCE – 500 BCE). The site has been excavated intermittently since 1966, with the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography at the Armenian Academy of Sciences conducting rescue excavations in Karashamb since the 1980s. Unfortunately, some of the graves were damaged and stones were taken to be reused as building material. Approximately 1,060 tombs were excavated from 1981 – 1984 and 554 more between 2009 and 2016. 

The analysis of the materials from the rich kurgan (mound) burials point to the emergence of social hierarchies during the early phases of the Middle Bronze Age and the rise of state-level political entities in the Southern Caucasus sometime in the second half of the 2nd millennium BCE. The earliest tombs within this ancient site are associated with the “Treghk-Vanadzor” culture. A major find was the King Sepulchre (Royal Tomb) of Karashamb, where an ancient silver goblet with images of Armenia’s mythology and spiritual culture was found. According to the Field Director Varduhi Melikyan, the main goal of the recent excavations is to explore the burial ritual. During a period when there were no written sources, funerary arrangements reveal the household structure, social construction, demography, and the peoples’ religious perceptions. 

From 2014-2015, the Research Program in Armenian Archaeology and Ethnography at UCLA was involved in the creation of a database for the cataloging of finds from the Karashamb Necropolis. Additionally, Dr. Martirosyan-Olshansky conducted sourcing research on the obsidian arrowheads from the site.