Aramus

🔍 Research history

The earliest explorations of the site can certainly be attributed to Bayburtian, who explored the Aramus basin extensively in the 1930s and identified an Early Bronze Age burial mound south of Mayakovski on the road to Dzoraghbyur, next to the important multi-period site of Elar. However, the earliest investigations were most likely carried out by Emma Khanzadyan, who also began extensive excavations at nearby Elar in the 1970s. Based on the Elar inscription of King Argishti I, which commemorates the victory over Etiuni and the conquest of Uluani and the city of Darani around 782 BC, Khanzadyan interpreted Aramus as an Early Iron Age Etiunian fortress.

The first comprehensive excavations were started in 1988 by Hayk Avetisyan at the Central Fort. He uncovered the monumental gate and two rooms along the northern fortification wall. The excavation revealed two main periods of occupation dated to the early and late Urartian periods. Particularly notenworthy was the stratigraphic evidence that the local, so-called Lchashen-Metsamor pottery continued to be produced alongside the Urartian, so-called Biainian red-polished pottery, while the latter has been replaced by a new type of red-burnished pottery in the younger period, which is interpreted as a local imitation and correspondingly termed local Urartian pottery.

This finding formed the basis for both the study of the impact of the Urartian conquest of the Ararat Plain on the local culture and the periodisation of their rule in Armenia. Since 2004, systematic excavations have been conducted at the site as part of the Armenian-Austrian joint project Aramus Excavation and Field School, which combines scientific-archaeological research with university didactic teaching. Until 2008, Wilfrid Allinger-Csollich was the Austrian co-director, who handed over this position to Sandra Heinsch and Walter Kuntner in 2009. Since then, the archaeological investigations have been extended to the entire fortress complex and a total of five construction periods, Aramus V-I, hav been distinguished, providing a more detailed stratigraphic basis for the chronological and cultural-historical reconstruction of the so-called early and late Urartian periods. Above all, however, the findings show that the fortress survived the fall of the Urartian kingdom, and, despite adopting Urartian features, e.g. in pottery production, administration and architecture, produced a distinct material culture.

🧱 Archaeological description

Location-topography
Aramus is located on the plateau of the eponomous Kotayk marz in the middle of the Aramus Basin, which extends south of the Hatis and Gutansar volcanic massifs and is bordered by the Gegham mountain range to the east. The region is very rich in water and has extensive grazing areas that have been frequented since the Paleolithic Period thanks to the obsidian mines on the surface. One of the most important routes from the Ararat plain to Lake Sevan passed throughAramus, which accordingly played a central role for the northward expansion of the kingdom of Urartu in the 8th century BC.

Stratigraphy
The oldest finds include Palaeolithic hand axes found on the surface. Also, worth mentioning are isolated Kura-Araxes as well as Trialeti-Vanadzor monochrome painted pottery fragments respectively from the 1st half of the 3rd and the 1st half of the second millennium BC, but also from disturbed contexts.

Five construction periods were distinguished during the excavations from 2004-2019 : Aramus Periods V and IV are assigned to the Middle Iron Age (850-650 BC) and Aramus Periods III and II to the Late Iron Age (650-300 BC). Aramus Period I represents a Medieval re-use, in particular of the East Fort, where a stone cross of the 5th century AD was found as spolia in the debris. The settlement is dated with radiocarbon to the 10th-12th century AD.

The most intensive period of use is Aramus III, which consists of four settlement phases and encompass a stratification of cultural layers over 1 m thick. The occupation is associated to the construction of a monumental gate flanked by bastions. This find is currently the most extensive archaeological context from the period between the fall of the Urartian kingdom and the rise of the Achaemenids.

Architecture
The fortress covers an area of about 10 ha, making it one of the largest Iron Age fortresses in Armenia. It is built on an elongated ridge about 400 m long and 300 m wide. The fortress consists of five independent forts, the East, Central and West Forts, which were built one after the other on the ridge, and the North and South Forts, through which the main traffic in the fortresses ran and was regulated accordingly. Of the upper forts, only the Central and West Forts were directly connected by a monumental gate, while the East Fort could initially only be entered from the North Fort and, from Period Aramus III onwards, also through a monumental gate in the north-east. The main entrance to the fortress has not yet been identified. The dry-stone wall architecture shows a mixture of Urartian and local Early Iron Age features, with the latter predominanting in the North Fort. These include the irregular course of the outer wall, oriented towards the terrain, and the absence of regularly arranged buttresses, which in turn are characteristic of Urartian fortification masonry. Accordingly, these features are also found on the outer walls of the other forts, which are also characterised by strict rectilinearity.

The clearest mixture that consistently characterizes all stone walls of the Middle Iron Age of Aramus is the use of only roughly hewn or not hewn at all stones and sometimes erratic blocks, which is also typical of fortress construction in the preceding epoch. 

However, the dry-stone masonry is only used for the construction of a stone substructure of a maximum high of 1 m, on which, in accordance with the new Urartian Zeitgeist, the mud-brick walls were raised. Moreover, the stones are usally laid in horizontal layers and not wedged together. This construction technique corresponds more to the cyclopean masonry of the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages and, interestingly is also found in the masonry of the Late Iron Age Aramus, albeit with partially hewn stones of the same sizes as in the Urartian period. Another feature of Late Urartian architecture, such as in Karmir Blur but not found in Aramus until Period III, is the construction of huge bastions.

🔨 Findings

The vast majority of finds consists of pottery fragments. There is also a strikingly high proportion of processed obsidian, especially splinters, which, however, make it clear that stone tools were also produced and used in large quantities in the Iron Age. 

Particularly noteworthy is the discovery of a stela made of red tufa stone, now on display in the Erebuni Historical & Archaeological Museum-Reserve, which is interpreted as a cult object, called Pulusi in Urartian. Bronze finds include various types of arrowheads, a spearhead, a fibula, an undecorated fragment of a belt, various pins and bracelets and, most importantly, the figure of a bull, now on display in the Yerevan History Museum. Iron finds include arrowheads and objects that are too eroded to be identified. Finally, the discovery of a silver needle, a golden pearl and a foil fragment should also be mentioned.

🌍 Significance

The site enables a differentiated reconstruction of the cultural interaction between Etiuni and Urartu as well as the political development of Armenia in the pre-Achaemenid period. Particularly remarkable is the absence of horizons of abandonment or destruction, neither at the beginning nor at the end of the Urartian presence in Aramus. The fact that many Urartian features continued to be retained, especially the preservation of the fortress itself, suggests that Urartian rule in Aramus was based on cooperation and integration of local entities and not on violent suppression.

📜 Traditional legends

Aramus, meaning the shoulder of Ara, is mentioned in the legends of Ara the Handsome as one of the places where his body is buried. Mt. Hatis, on the other hand, is mentioned in the local tradition of the village as the place where the injured Aram was healed or his body was resurrected.

📚 Sources

1. Avetisyan H. 2016, The Pulusi Stela Found in Aramus, Armenonoligcal Issues, 2 (8), p. 109-115.
2. Avetisyan H., Allinger-Csollich W. 2008, A Bronze Sculpture from Aramus, Aramazd III/1, p. 87-90.
3. Heinsch S., Kuntner W., Avetisyan H. 2012, The Iron Age Fortress of Aramus, Armenia: Archaeological evidence of the
   East and North

Registration in the list of monuments

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