The urban part of Erebuni fortress was not fully disclosed. It has been more than a month since the Armenian-French expedition started working on the settlement on the south-eastern hill of the fortress. The French are conducting excavations in the castle, the Armenian specialists - in the city part. The top layer of the soil was removed to reveal a valuable historical page for archeology.
Vahe Sargsyan (Head of the Karmir Bloor Branch of the Erebuni Historical and Archaeological Museum-Reserve)-Here we have Urartian external settlement, in this particular spot we see a pit for domestic use.
Animal bones found from the area will soon be studied by archaeo-zoologists, to find out what animals were being used here as a food source. The pit contained coal pieces and fragments of ceramics.
Mikael Badalyan (Director of “Erebuni” Historical and Archaeological Museum-Reserve) - In the pit we found classic Urartian Red and local black ceramics. These two were in the same place, with each other. This is extremely important for us and for the archeology of Urartu.
This proves that there were several stages of settlement here. Three big containers were also found on the territory. The specialists worked a little and completely restored them. Now they are kept in Erebuni Museum.
Mikael Badalyan – these walls were discovered during the excavations. The door could open and close with the help of this.
The settlement dates back to the VII-V centuries B.C. This was an entire Urartian city with very important infrastructures. Archaeologists noticed even the coloring of the soil.
This is not an accident. The archaeologists discussed it with geomorphologists and engineering seismologists, and identified two versions.
Mikael Badalyan – By one of the versions, it is an earthquake. By another one - it is possible that this segment used to be a piece of the Urartian water canal, which was closed at one point.
If the water channel's version is confirmed, it will be an exceptional discovery not only for Armenia, but also for the archeology of the region. This year for the first time the excavations are funded by the Committee on Science and Yerevan Municipality. The work will continue next year. The results will be published in scientific articles. We are sure that this excavation site will shed a new light on the Urartian period.
