In the shadow of Mount Ararat (Masis),
where
Noah's Ark is said to have stranded (Gen. 8:4), are the remains of
Dvin,
the capital of Armenia and See of their Catholicos until the earthquake of
893 AD:
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Some distance southeast of Dvin, in the
highlands north of the Ararat Plain, is Bird Cave where several caches
of
ceramic vessels, lithic tools and organic artifacts, dating 4500-3000
BC, were found:
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Objective of visit:
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To help restart the
archaeological excavation of Dvin and obtain samples of pottery for
residue analysis. |
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Date of visit:
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August-September 2007
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Fellow visitors:
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Dr. Gregory Areshian,
Research Associate of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA, and
archaeologists of the Armenian Institute of Archaeology and
Ethnography, co-directed by Aram Kalantaryan and Nyura Hakobyan. |
| Results: |
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Three large trenches were
opened and a small number of samples, both from Dvin and Bird Cave,
were taken for future biochemical
analysis. |
| Approximate
position and
date of the site: |
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Dvin is located about 40
km. southeast of Yerevan, the modern capital of Armenia. The city
was founded in 330-338 AD, on top of an ancient settlement, by Khosrov
II, to replace the previous capital at Artaxata.
After Armenia was conquered in 428 AD,
Dvin became the residence of the
Sassanid, Byzantine, Umayyad and Abbasid governors. Despite the fact
that the city was repeatedly conquered by nearby Christian and
Islamic empires, and saw several Armenian uprisings, it remained a
prosperous economic and cultural center. Major earthquakes in 863 and
893 AD all but destroyed the city and killed many of its 100,000
inhabitants. Although the city was eventually rebuilt, the move of the Catholicos (patriarch of the Armenian
monophysite Christian church) to Echmiadzin (in Vagharshapat)
combined with the changing geopolitical situation in the region made
that it never regained its
former splendor. Dvin was finally destroyed by Mongol invaders in 1236.
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| Short description
of the
site: |
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Dvin is standing above a
fertile agricultural plain with abundant orchards, vineyards and
vegetable gardens. The highest part of the site is formed by the
remains of the citadel, surrounded by mud-brick defensive walls and a
moat. Southwest of this are the remains of a large cathedral (30 x 58
m.) dedicated to Saint Gregory the Illuminator, built on an earlier
pagan temple. Surrounding this are the remains of the palace of
the Catholicos, built in the
7th century AD. Large parts of the former city are now under the modern
agricultural fields and settlements in the area. Archaeological
investigations of Dvin have been going on since 1937, albeit
interrupted
from time to time for political or financial reasons. Isolated finds
indicate that the history of the site does go back as far as the 3rd
millennium BC (Bronze Age), contemporary with the use of Bird Cave.
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| Additional remarks: |
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My work in Armenia would
not have been
possible without the Cotsen
Institute of Archaeology and Pavel Avetsyan, Director of the
Armenian Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography.
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