Ushkiani-Goldprojekt (Armenien)
summary
The area of Gegharkunik in Eastern Armenia, fascinating due to its landscape and cultural history, forms a closed and clearly delineated natural environment. It is flanked to the north and south by the Lesser Caucasus mountain range, towering up to 3000 m in height, in the west by Lake Sevan, and the east offers the only direct passage from the Southern to the Eastern Caucasus. Its unusual geographical position holds a cultural-historical and stratigraphic importance as an important trade junction throughout history and up until the present.
The concept of the research project “Ushkiani: The Significance of Gold from Armenia for the Development of Bronze Age Cultures of the Caucasus”, funded by the German Research Foundation, focuses around the comprehensive reconstruction of the early usage of gold in Armenia and its significance for Ancient Near Eastern cultures. Here, the chemical examination of gold objects manufactured during the Bronze Age and originating from stratigraphically closed areas is required in order to determine the already investigated potential for Armenian gold ore deposits and their actual usage during prehistory. The combination of archaeometallurgical and archaeological research will form the basis of the project. Accompanying systematic research of the surrounding microregions is essential alongside the direct investigation of gold artifacts from Bronze Age sites in Armenia, which is possible for the first time, and the possible comparability between analyzed placer and reef gold from (pre)historic gold mining areas in the region of Stok (Gegharkunik) and further gold deposits in the southern Caucasus. In addition to the question of gold usage and processing in the areas under consideration, the reconstruction of the prehistoric infrastructure of the Near East (extraction – production – trade) is of particular importance.
survey
Team
Institut für Archäologie und Ethnographie
Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften
der Republik Armenien
Partner
Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften der Republik Armenien
Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg
Dr. René Kunze
Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg
Institut für Altertumswissenschaften
Seminar für Orientalische Archäologie und Kunstgeschichte
Telefon: 0345/ 55-24039
Telefax: 0345 / 55-27056
rene.kunze@orientarch.uni-halle.de
Raum E.02.0
Emil-Abderhalden-Str. 28
06108 Halle (Saale)