Zorats Karer (Шаблон:Transl Armenian: Шаблон:Lang), also known as Karahunj, is a megalithic structure near the city of Sisian in the Syunik province of Armenia that may be as old as 7,600 years.
Zorats Karer, also known as Karahunj (Armenian for singing stones), is a huge megalithic monument in southern Armenia, the largest of a dozen such types of ancient observatories in the area. The site is a combination of early-mid Bronze Age burial shafts and a large collection of standing stones (223 have been counted to date). The site is reminiscent of megaliths found in Britain, Iceland, Ireland and France's Brittany region but probably outdates the oldest of them by a thousand years.
According to scientist’s findings, a temple consisting of 40 stones built in honor of the Armenians’ main God, Ari, meaning the Sun, is situated in the central part of Carahunge. Besides the temple, it had a large and developed observatory, and also a university that makes up the temple’s wings. The stones are 0.5 to 3 meters in height and weigh up to 10 tones each. They were quarried from nearby river cliffs and carried to the site. The stones form an egg shape around a Bronze Age tomb and four avenues off the central part. Even greater than Zorats Karer's construction is its situation, for it runs along the edge of a ridge and is visible from many different directions (possibly its builders' main intentions). In the nearby city of Sissian, there is a small museum dedicated to findings in the area, including paleolithic petroglyphs found on mountain tops in the area, and grave artifacts form the Bronze Age burial site with over 200 shaft graves.
First studied by the archeo-astronomist Elma Parsamian of the Biurakan Observatory in the 1980s, the site became the focus of a series of Armenian and International study (1994-2004)(via the Armenian astro-physicist and astronomer Paris Heruni, creator of the first radio-optical telescope in the world), which focused on the placement of the stones and the carvings of eye-holes in a number of them. Using azimuth positions, precession and the position of stars seen from the site over time, Heruni and a team of French, German and English astronomers claim the site may be as old as 7600-4500 years old. The astrophysicist Gerald Hawkins supported this conclusion in response to the team's findings and noted its similarities to Stonehenge and Callanish.
A nearby village, named Karahunj, takes the official name for the site, which has a compound meaning: "Kar" in Armenian means Stone, while "hunj" means either singing or bouquet. Interestingly, Stonehenge is also a compound world, and 'henge' has no English root. Heruni's team noted the similarity between the translation of Karahunj and Stonehenge, and also that between Callanish (Old Brittany "Caranish" which in Armenian is exactly translated as 'Stone Sign').
In 2004 the site was officially named the Karahunj (Carahunge) Observatory, by Parliamentary decree (Government decision No. 1095-n, July 29, 2004).