Disputes over certain "ancient monuments" are commonplace. Scientists with degrees and ordinary people interested in these topics without any scientific regalia equally cannot stop at explaining how the Egyptian pyramids, Stonehenge, Arkaim and many other sights scattered around the world appeared.
But one thing is controversy on the Internet or at scientific conferences, the other is when local residents try to expel scientists from the excavation site, referring to the fact that they draw wrong conclusions and belittle the significance of the monument. We are talking about a noisy story about how a group of citizens in Armenia opposed archaeologists working on the site of the so-called "Armenian Stonehenge", or rather, Zorats-Karer, a megalithic monument that is attributed to ancient times.
The essence of the dispute, which, as it turned out, has been going on for a long time, is that scientists are inclined to believe that this place is an ancient settlement and a nearby necropolis. Zorats-Karer translates as "stone army", the locals call this place even easier - Tsits-Tsits Karer, which translates as "protruding stones". Both names are "speaking" - there really are stones sticking out, a lot of stones. They may well resemble a large stone army, but they say that according to ancient legend, real warriors rest under these stones. The entire complex, which is now referred to as Zorats-Karer, occupies about 10 hectares.
The above-mentioned stones are placed on this square - apparently, artificially. This is exactly what they remind of the famous "Stonehenge". The stones reach heights of up to 2.8 meters (but many are shorter than human height) and weigh up to 5.5 tons. Some of the stones are relatively out of order, and some are cromlechs (that is, they form a circle) - in the center of these cromlechs, burial chambers were found in which burials were found, as well as weapons, jewelry, household utensils, etc.
The Armenian monument also has a name - Karahunj. But it was given to this place in the 90s of the last century, taking the name of one of the rather distant villages. There is a certain similarity in the fact that we are dealing with vertically installed stones, and the consonance of the names Stonehenge and Karahunj - and, apparently, a number of other justifications, gives a reason to compare the Armenian and British monuments.
But back to the stones - in this case, they became the "stumbling block". Some of the standing stones have holes of small diameter, which made it possible to assume that the entire structure is an ancient observatory. If you look through these holes, then you can see a certain localized area of the sky - this is already a reason to assume that in this way observations were carried out either for specific stars or constellations, or for the Sun and Moon on days of eclipses or other noticeable astronomical phenomena.
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They say that local guides began their story with the story that Zorats-Karer is the oldest observatory in the world, and the dates of its existence are referred to "long before our era." It is clear that this delights and attracts tourists here.
Other legends are also told - for example, that the stones are arranged here in accordance with the stars of the constellation Cygnus, and that Zorats-Karer is thus a kind of atlas of the starry sky. They say that the stones turn a little every year - taking into account the displacement of the earth's axis. But scientists' comments on this matter were not found.
Among a number of hypotheses, there is also the most daring theory - that this place is a cosmodrome, and it was not chosen for these purposes by chance: the open stone plateau is a good place for launching spaceships. They say that local residents now periodically see various kinds of glowing balls that fly here.
With all this, the Armenian archaeologists working on the site are sure that Zorats-Karer is nothing more than a well-preserved ancient settlement. According to the utensils found in the burial grounds, it was suggested that military leaders, among others, could be buried here. That is, the legend about the burials of warriors may be quite true.
And about the holes in the stones, scientists give comments that are completely unpleasant for the supporters of the theory about the ancient observatory. They believe that ropes or belts could be threaded through these holes, which made it possible to both move these stones (simply by dragging by the ropes), and tie animals to these stones or arrange a corral for them, passing the ropes through the holes in the stones and thus making a closed ring.
The question of antiquity (and those who defend the hypothesis about the observatory give this monument an age of 7-10 thousand years) is also not confirmed by archaeological data - the earliest trace of material culture dates back to the 2nd millennium BC. This year, archaeologists unearthed the remains of a north-south wall that is considered defensive - it defended the settlement from the eastern side, from which it was most accessible (apparently, taking into account the characteristics of the terrain). The preliminary construction of this wall dates back to the 4th century BC.
However, the confrontation continues and at the local level it has already turned into a political area. One side demands to save Karahunj from excavations, and the other - to save from provocations. There is a known story when a photograph was posted on Facebook, which shows how one of the stones, hooked to the same hole, is lifted out of the ground with a crane. As a result, the Ministry of Culture of Armenia issued a statement that the photo was taken in 2011 and was taken during the construction of an artificial copy of Karahunj and the stone is not ancient, but prepared specially for this model.
Photo from Facebook Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Armenia.