Karahunj or Zorats Karer, also known as the Armenian Stonehenge, is a megalithic stone circle located in the vicinity of Sisian, 200 km from the capital of Armenia, Yerevan.
The name “Karahunj ” is considered to have been derived from two Armenian words – “kar” (Armenian: քար, stone), and hunge or hoonch (Armenian: հունչ, sound), which could be interpreted as “singing of stones”.
It appears that the structure is an observatory – it features 84 mysterious holes directed at cosmic bodies like the Sun, Moon, and stars.
The structure is purposely aligned with the Cygnus constellation and its brightest star, Deneb.
It consists of 223 stones and occupies about 250 square meters. Karahunj is 2000 years older than Stonehenge and is thus considered the oldest known observatory.
From the archeo-astronomical standpoint, Karahunj was first studied in the 1980s by scholars E. Parsamyan and P. Herouni.
Source: aras.am
