Researchers Solve Mystery of Armenia's "Dragon Stones"

Archaeology Magazine ^ | September 22, 2025 | editors / unattributed

[SunkenCiv]

Zartonk Media reports that an international team of researchers conducted a comprehensive study of Armenia's "dragon stones" that has finally cracked the mystery surrounding these enigmatic ancient stone steles. Known as vishaps after the Armenia word for dragon, the monoliths can stand 18 feet high. They were typically decorated with animal imagery often depicting fish, and were erected in high altitude summer pastures. Archaeologists have been unsure exactly when or why they were created. Led by Vahe Gurzadyan and Arsen Bobokhyan of Yerevan State University, the team analyzed 115 known vishaps and determined they were often located near springs, streams, and irrigation systems. This led them to conclude that they must have been associated with ancient water cults and rituals that celebrated water as a life-sustaining force. Frequently clustered at high altitudes, specifically at either 6,200 or 8,800 feet above sea level, the monoliths were likely placed symbolically near sources of the snowmelt that provided water for agricultural communities in the valleys below. In the past, it had been difficult to determine exactly how old these monuments were, but new radiocarbon dating from vishaps at the site of Tirinkatar on Mount Aragats revealed that they were placed there between 4200 and 4000 b.c. According to the researchers, the monolithic stone sculptures were part of a complex sacred topography that offers a better global understanding of high-altitude ritual landscapes. Read the original scholarly article about this research in npj Heritage Science. To read about excavations of the country's earliest known church, go to "Around the World: Armenia."

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TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: armenia; bronzeage; dragons; dragonstones; epigraphyandlanguage; godsgravesglyphs; mountaragats; tirinkatar; vishaps

[SunkenCiv]

Standing vishap at the site of Sakhurak 5, Armenia

V. Gurzadyan & A. Bobokhyan 2025, npj Heritage Science

[SunkenCiv]

[ComputerGuy]

Interesting

[PIF]

“This led them to conclude that they must have been associated with ancient water cults and rituals that celebrated water as a life-sustaining force. Frequently clustered at high altitudes, specifically at either 6,200 or 8,800 feet above sea level, the monoliths were likely placed symbolically near sources of the snowmelt that provided water for agricultural communities in the valleys below. In the past, it had been difficult to determine exactly how old these monuments were, but new radiocarbon dating ...”

—
led them to conclude ... they must have been associated ... were likely placed ... symbolically ... radiocarbon dating

Stone is dated with optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) - very expensive, but far better that radiocarbon dating which only dates carbon, leading to massive assumptions that are usually proven wrong later.

They still have no idea when or why the stones where made and placed there - but they are now eligible for more grant money having “solved” a major problem. Archeology and many scientific disciplines are riddled with this sort of thinking - fitting some facts into a per-existing theory and ignoring all others to look great and get ahead of other people in the discipline.

[CFW]

Decades from now, someone is going to look at my rock encircled flower bed that has a granite post in the middle of it, and decide it is connected to an ancient religious ceremony.

It’s just a flower bed and I thought the granite post looked neat in the middle of it.

[Valpal1]

“the monoliths were likely placed symbolically near sources of the snowmelt that provided water for agricultural communities in the valleys below.”

Or they were actual snow gauges that helped them predict how much run off they would would have for the upcoming growing season or flooding risks.

Maybe they had practical reasons for placing them.

[Empire_of_Liberty]

That is an excellent hypothesis!

Ancient Man was probably smarter than a modern “scientist”.

[Verginius Rufus]

4200 to 4000 B.C. would be before Armenian had emerged as a distinct language. It’s part of the Indo-European language family, which seems to have been spoken in what is now southern Ukraine and southern Russia about that time, but some experts have argued that the ancestral language to Proto-Indo-European might have been spoken further south earlier, so it may have included the area of Armenia.

[Does so]

“Ancient Man was probably smarter than a modern “scientist”.”
.
I’ve got a “working” theory that echoes “Punctuated Equilibrium” (Evolution, by the late Jay Gould).

“Civilization lurches forward through Humanity’s sporadically-birthed geniuses.”

OK, this theory needs more “work”.

:(

[gnarledmaw]

They probably had a lot more room to think and memorize things of real value because they didnt have so much dogma to tend to nor as much virtue that needed signaling.

[SunkenCiv]

Same kind of issue exists for pretty much all antiquities, including those of the Americas (named for Amerigo Vespucci), Egypt, Britain...

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks, and good call.

[SunkenCiv]

I’m just glad their approach is riddled with thinking, and that someone is studying this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_exposure_dating
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoluminescence_dating
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optically_stimulated_luminescence