Other researchers contend that the site is a necropolis dating from the Middle Bronze Age, around 1500 b.c., and that many of the original stones had since been incorporated into a wall around the city. In 2004, the Armenian government officially named the site Karahunj Observatory.
When you’re through touring Karahunj, be sure to also visit the Sisian History Museum. Located in nearby Sisian, a town of some 15,000 residents, this small facility houses more than 2,000 regional artifacts, many from Karahunj.
The second ancient site on your list should be Metsamor, an easy 22-mile (36 km) drive due west from Yerevan. It’s just outside Taronik, a village of some 2,000 people, at an altitude of 2,800 feet (853 m). When Metsamor was discovered in 1963, it was determined to be both a metallurgical complex and an industrial center of the ancient world.
Indeed, the area around this site contained deposits of copper, gold, silver, iron, lead, zinc, antimony, mercury, and tin. Tin in particular was not a common metal in the ancient world, but alongside copper, it was an important component for making bronze.
Soon after archaeologists began work at Metsamor, they found a clay plate whose hieroglyph letters matched those of the early second millennium b.c. The letters mimicked the patterns of the 12 zodiacal constellations known at that time. This led researchers to conclude that they had uncovered traces of an observatory where the constellations were named some 4,000 years ago.