Հայկական լեռնաշխարհում կիմերական մշակույթի ուսումնասիրության արդի վիճակը և հեռանկարները

Abstract

Cimmerians are the first historical people of Eastern Europe. The term “Cimmerian culture” is known in archaeology since the beginning of the last century. The problem of the differentation of Cimmerian and Scythian archaological complexes is very important, which has not yet found a cardinal solution, particularly – in the Western Asian region. The discussed problem was not explored in Armenian archaeology at all. Through archaeological investigation of the manifestations of Cimmerian culture in the Armenian Highland, fundamentals can be established for defining the place of Cimmerian culture among concurrent archaeological cultures of the mentioned region. This can eliminate the existing contradiction between the information on this subject provided by ancient written sources and the findings of archaeological investigations. In the system of monuments of the Armenian Highland, a number of funerary and dwelling complexes can be identified that probably could be named Cimmerian. For achieving this aim, a new approach should be applied. During scientific explorations, available data on structural elements of a funeral complex, funerary rite, and sacrifices should be broadly considered. For identification of Cimmerian funerary complexes, primary consideration should be given to the curvilinearity of the burial chamber walls, and the presence of funerary stone sculptures of a specific type (not anthropomorphic) in the burial complex. As warrior riders’ corpses were buried commonly in Cimmerian sepulchres, two more attributes should be considered for these sepulchres – the burial of horse and the placement of horse tack in the burial chamber. The whole set of items typical for militant horsemen of Cimmerian tribal groups (weapons, horse tacks, tools of work, etc.) should be considered as completely as possible. In Cimmerian funerary and dwelling complexes of Armenian Highland, the presence of both masculine and feminine tools of work should be considered as natural.