FORTRESS AND MUSEUM OF EREBOUNI

Among the sites dating from the Ourartou period discovered in Yerevan, the citadel of Erébouni, built in 782 BC, is the best preserved. At the foot of the citadel there is a museum containing coins, statuettes and ritual and utilitarian objects discovered during the excavations, which began in 1950, when a plaque - sealed into the Cyclopean wall leading to the main entrance of the fortress - was unearthed, mentioning in cuneiform writing the date of the foundation of Erebouni by King Arguishti. Built on the small 65 m high Arin Berd hill, the walls of the citadel contained a city whose foundations give us a rather eloquent glimpse of the civilization of Ourartou, all the more so as archaeologists have reconstructed some of its monuments, places of worship and palaces. At the southern corner of the walls that dominate the surrounding plain, the reconstruction of a portico supported by 6 wooden columns, with interior walls covered with brightly coloured frescoes, and once flanked by two bronze winged figures (on either side of the main entrance to the museum), shows how the builders of Ourartou were able to adapt the Assyrian and Persian influences. Among the remains of dwellings, craftsmen's stalls or a granary, the palace, richly decorated with frescoes depicting scenes from royal life, is a precious testimony to the art of Ourartou. Also to be seen, in the heart of the fortified town, the peristyle also reconstructed, a square inner courtyard with wooden colonnades, decorated with polychrome frescoes alternating human and animal representations, and geometric and plant motifs. Fragments of these frescoes, such as those that decorated the temple dedicated to the god Khaldi, a construction inspired by the apadana (columned hall) of the Persians, are preserved in the museum, including a chiselled gold rhyton, enormous amphorae that contained wine or oil, and the famous reconstruction of a polychrome wooden statuette representing a warrior in the service of the king of Ourartou.

At the museum, you will be able to find out about two other sites: Karmir Plur, where you can see the remains of the fortress founded by the son of King Arguishti, and the site of Shengavit, in the neighborhood of the same name, southwest of Yerevan, containing remains of the Bronze Age, the products of which are still being excavated and are displayed in the small adjoining museum. Beware, in summer, the heat is overwhelming...