A Dragon’s Burial in Armenia
Recent research provides insights into infant burials under a “dragon stone”
I enjoy ancient stone monuments, be they the mysterious monoliths of Stonehenge, the curious creatures of Göbekli Tepe, or the mesmerizing Moai of Easter Island. I admire them because we don’t know everything about them. Why were they built, how, when, and by whom?
They have stood fast for centuries, as imposing as ever. When you stand among them, you can’t help but feel the allure of ages past. Such monuments and structures exist across the globe, each hiding a little bit of mystery.
Should you ever visit Armenia, you may encounter a rather odd-looking stone with the imposing and awe-inspiring name “Dragon Stone.” These dragon stones, or Vishapakar, are typically 150–550cm (~59–217 inches) tall stone stelae engraved with animal imagery. Two infant burials were found under one such stone.
Infant graves combined with a dragon stone are unique and have not been recorded for the other ca.150 dragon stones at Lchashen.
Dr. Arsen Bobokhyan and colleagues set out to uncover as much as possible behind this mysterious burial. They used ancient DNA (aDNA), radiocarbon dating, and a good old-fashioned literature review to determine as much as possible.
The Dragon Stones
The name ‘dragon’ (vishap) is a bit of a misnomer, likely due to medieval people misunderstanding the animal imagery to be that of dragons (I won’t fault them on that; some of the stones are dragonish). However, these stones depict fish, snakes, and bulls.
To be more specific, researchers classify the stones into three different classes: those that look like fish (piscis), those that look like the hide of a bull draped over them (vellus), and those that are a combination (hybrid).
Upon examination of their location and local folktales, a few similarities emerge. Of the ca. 150 dragon stones, most are in water-rich meadows high up in the mountains. In local folk tales, dragons or dragons in the shapes of bulls, fish, and snakes live in the mountain meadows of Armenia (and, to a lesser extent, the neighboring regions of Southern Georgia and Eastern Türkiye). It was believed that they were divine guardians of water and thunder.
The reason behind their creation, however, remains a mystery. The earliest known dragon stone was erected at Karmir Sar around 5000 BC.
Over time, they were re-embedded in various rituals and secular (religious) contexts. There is ongoing debate on whether these re-embedding episodes were done together with ritual and new religion as a way for the older ancestral beliefs to remain and transmit into the new or if they were done to completely erase whatever the dragon stones stood for before and integrate them wholly into a new belief.
Arguments exist for and against both hypotheses. For example, in the medieval period, some dragon stones were turned into Christian khachkars (cross-stones). This could be interpreted as destroying the old in favor of the new or integrating the old into the new.
It could be a bit of both, depending on when and who re-embedded the dragon stones.
Furthermore, contemporary local shepherds ascribe the dragon stones with an aura of sacredness and mystery. To them, they are the ‘tombs of giants’.
Others, such as the Yazidi (Kurdish religious group), were recorded offering pieces of glass and candles to the dragon stones. Over two centuries ago, the dragon stones were popular pilgrim sites, especially amongst the local populations of Aragats and Ghazakh. The ethnographic accounts of these pilgrims relay that they believed the stones to be the ‘graves of saints’.
A Dragon and a Grave
Lchashen, where the dragon stone and the infant burial originated, is located on the edge of the high-altitude Sevan Lake and is one of the most important Bronze and Iron Age archaeological site clusters in Armenia. The area includes an Iron Age fortress with a rock inscription of King Argishti I (800 BC), Early and Middle Bronze Age settlements, and Middle and Late Bronze Age cemeteries.
Two dragon stones once called this place home. They were discovered in 1980 just southwest of the Lchashen village while installing water pipes. The dragon stones were investigated, and it was noted that a partially disturbed burial had lain beneath one of them. The stela was taken to the Metsamor Historical-Archaeological Museum-Reserve and placed before its entrance.
Archaeologist Emma Khanzadyan published a preliminary report on the context in 2005. She reported various broken artifacts, animal bones, and human remains. Based on the skull's positioning, she interpreted the burial as having been looted in ancient times.
She noted an adult skull, likely that of a female, and two infants among the human remains. She proposed that the adult remains to be that of a female due to the common practice of burying women on their left side while males were buried on their right during the Lchashen Late Bronze Age. Among the grave goods, she noted pottery, a bronze hair ring (also typically, but not exclusively, a female accessory), a bone needle, an obsidian tool, and a carnelian bead.
The dragon stone had been placed above the burial. However, it couldn’t be determined whether it had intentionally been laid down horizontally or had fallen with time.
The dragon stone was one of a vellus (meaning it looked like a bovid hide had been draped over it). The back of the stone depicts a tail ending in multiple spirals, while its head, ears, and horns are shown on the front of the stela.
A liquid pours from its mouth; whether this is blood, water, or a mixture of both is unknown.
The Infants
The human remains were transported to the Metsamor Historical-Archaeological Museum-Reserve, where they remained until a recent investigation.
Using a combination of traditional osteoarchaeology (human skeletal archaeology), radiocarbon dating, and aDNA, the researchers were able to determine that the human remains belonged to two infant girls. They were dubbed Dragon1 and Dragon2 (those are some epic names). Both had been around 0–2 months old when they died.
However, it was not possible to determine if both passed away at the same time or if one died and the other was interred at a later stage.
Khanzdyan estimated the burial date back to 1600–1500BC (Late Bronze Age) based on the pottery found within the burial. Because the remains of Dragon1 and Dragon2 had been scattered, it was hard to conclude which bones belonged to which infant.
It was determined that the infants were buried between 1613 and 1514 BC. Radiocarbon dating is accurate. However, whether these individuals died in the same year cannot be concluded with certainty. It is possible one child was buried, and the other died at around the same age years later, or that both were born and died in the same year.
aDNA provided details on the two individuals’ sex, which could not be determined from the bones. They were both girls and shared at least 25% of their DNA. Biologically speaking, individuals who share 25% of their DNA are either half-sisters, aunt and niece, double cousins, or grandmother and grandchild.
Sadly, the adult skeleton had been taken to Russia, and its current location is unknown. Thus, no analysis of the bones could be conducted.
Without additional DNA from relatives or individuals from the same population, it was impossible to determine the exact relationship between the two girls. However, a half-sister, cousin, or aunt-niece relationship was deemed more probable than a grandmother who died at ca. two months old and a grandchild who also died at ca. two months old.
The aDNA revealed that the two individuals were related through the maternal line. This means that if they were half-sisters, they shared the same mother but different fathers. Or if they were aunts and nieces, this implies that one parent and one of their offspring had a child at around the same time, and both died as infants.
What makes these two infants so unique is their burial.
Regardless of their relation, multi-generational tombs are not attested among the over 400 known tombs of the Late Bronze Age nor any contemporary necropolis in Armenia.
Furthermore, if this were a multi-generational tomb constantly opened and closed over generations, one would expect many bones from multiple generations.
This wasn’t the case for the infant burial.
Unlike other graves at the time, which were buried in the cemetery, the female adult and the two infants were buried outside the cemetery.
Perhaps the adult female was the mother who gave birth to a child, who died, and sometime later gave birth to another child, and she, too, died in childbirth?
However, without analyzing the bones of the adult female, one cannot say the adult skeleton was the mother; she may have been an aunt or completely unrelated.
Another factor to note is that while stelae are sometimes used to mark graves in the Southern Caucasus, this is entirely unheard of for all 454 graves found in the Bronze Age Lchashen. Perhaps the individuals buried here were considered extraordinary or of some other importance.
This raises questions about their death. Were they natural deaths, or were the two individuals killed/sacrificed? The widespread spirituality in the region and the symbolic connotation of the burial with the dragon stone raises the possibility that these could have been sacred killings. But to what end?
If the dragon stones were linked with water and thunder, perhaps they were sacrificed during a drought or to appease/show respect to the bull/dragon spirit.
Infant burials are rare at Lchashen; burials with dragon stones are equally rare, yet a combined infant dragon stone burial was discovered and analyzed there. The burials below the dragon stone raise as many questions as they answer.
Even if we locate the adult skeleton, many questions will remain unanswered. Why were they buried beneath the dragon stone, and what was the dragon stones’ original purpose?
The dragon stones are enigmatic mysteries I hope to visit one day. I may visit the Metsamor Historical-Archaeological Museum-Reserve and wonder about the stela at its entrance.
What do you think, were the two girls half-sisters, ritual sacrifices or something else entirely? Have you seen the Dragon Stones, perhaps?
Let me know your thoughts, and if you’d like to support me further, why not Buy Me A Coffee?
References
Gilibert, A., Bobokhyan, A. and Hnila, P., 2012. Dragon stones in context. The discovery of high-altitude burial grounds with sculpted stelae in the Armenian Mountains. Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft zu Berlin, 144, pp.93–132.
Gilibert, A., Bobokhyan, A. and Hnila, P., 2018. Karmir Sar. New evidence on dragon-stones and ritual landscapes on Mount Aragats, Armenia. Orientalia Loveniensia Analecta, 268, pp.255–270.
Bobokhyan, A., Iraeta-Orbegozo, M., McColl, H., Mkrtchyan, R., Simonyan, H., Ramos-Madrigal, J., Andrades-Valtueña, A., Hnila, P., Gilibert, A. and Margaryan, A., 2024. Burial of two closely related infants under a “dragon stone” from prehistoric Armenia. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 57, p.104601.
