Arsen Bobokhyan: Vishapakars: Dragon Stones of Armenia’s Mountains

Vishapakars: Dragon Stones of Armenia’s Mountains A webinar with Dr. Arsen Bobokhyan of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, National Academy of Sciences of Armenia Saturday, March 13, 2021 Co-sponsored by the Ararat-Eskijian Museum and NAASR The mountains of Armenia are home to unique monuments traditionally called by the people vishapakar (dragon stone). The main centers of their distribution are Mount Aragats and the Geghama mountains. Today we know of approximately 150 examples of these monuments. Vishapakars are 150-550 cm high, are made, as a rule, of grayish basalt, and date to the Bronze Age and especially within the second millennium BCE. Among the many archaeological questions vishapakars raise, one of the most important is the problem of their protection. Both their destruction and removal took place as early as the beginning of the first millennium BCE, in the Urartian period, increased during the Middle Ages, and unfortunately continues to this day. The lecture will present recent efforts towards increasing research on and protection of these remarkable monuments. Dr. Arsen Bobokhyan was born in Yerevan in 1975. He received a PhD from the Institute of Prehistory, University of Tubingen, Germany, with the topic “Communication and Barter in the Highland between the Taurus and the Caucasus, ca. 2500-1500 BC.” From 1998-2018 he was a Researcher at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, at the Armenian Academy of Sciences. Since 2019 he has been the Vice-Director of the same Institute. He has also taught at Yerevan State University since 2007.