Salisbury Journal
Feb 9 2009
Armenian links to Stonehenge explored
12:19pm Monday 9th February 2009
By Corey Ross
THE story of Stonehenge and the mystery that surrounds it is familiar to
most Salisbury residents, but one man has come to the city to tell
people about an ancient circle of standing stones which pre-dates even
Wiltshire’s World Heritage site.
Vardan Levoni Tadevosyan is an Armenian/Spanish historian of the occult
who visited Salisbury last week to raise the profile of Carahunge,
dubbed the Armenian Stonehenge.
He said: `It’s a very important monument, not just for Armenia, but for
the whole world.’
Carahunge, meaning `speaking stones’, is located 200km from the Armenian
capital Yerevan, near a town called Sisian. There are over 200 stones on
the seven-hectare site and many of the stones have smooth angled holes
in them, directed at different points in the sky, leading scientists to
believe it is the world’s oldest observatory, dating back 7500 years.
Mr Tadevosyan is very passionate about wanting people to know more about
Carahunge and has his own theories on its links with Stonehenge.
His research of the last four years is based on the work done by
Professor Paris Herouni, a member of the Armenian National Academy of
Science and president of the Radiophysics Research Institute in Yerevan.
Prof Herouni started investigating Carahunge more than 20 years ago and
wrote a book, Armenians and Old Armenia, on his findings. He sent the
book to Prof G.S. Hawkins, who had investigated Stonehenge, and he
agreed with Herouni’s findings.
Mr Tadevosyan says that in neolithic times the Armenians were much more
advanced than most other cultures. A carving found on rocks near Lake
Sevan showed they knew the world was round, they could accurately
measure latitude, and they were already skilled in astronomy,
archaeology and engineering.
He believes the earliest population of Britain, who came from Armenia,
brought the ideas of Carahunge to Europe with them and played some part
in the creation of Stonehenge and other European sites.
He plans to put together a leaflet about Carahunge that can be available
to the public at the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum and curator
Adrian Green said he would be happy to display leaflets about the
ancient site.
`I have a passion about it because the world has a not nice attention on
Armenia. I want to publicise Armenian monuments and culture,’ said Mr
Tadevoysyan.
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