Skip to main content
XTOUR
Search

Archaeological site · Taronik, Metsamor community, Armavir

Metsamor Archaeological Site and Museum

Metsamor site · Metsamor Historical-Archaeological Museum-Reserve

An excavated fortress-settlement on a hill beside the Metsamor river near Taronik, occupied from the Bronze Age onwards, with a site museum showing finds from the Early Bronze Age to the late Middle Ages.

Where it is

Explore on XTOUR Map
Open Metsamor Archaeological Site and Museum on the XTOUR map. Directions are available there.

40.1263, 44.1868

Why go

The hill preserves the outline of a long-lived town: archaeologists have worked on the fortified citadel, the lower town beneath it and a cemetery to the east, and on the southern slope a religious complex of small temples with stepped clay altars. The museum is what makes the site readable, with objects such as an agate frog-shaped weight of a Babylonian king and a sardonyx seal in the form of an Egyptian hieroglyph. Excavations have run since the 1960s, more recently with an Armenian–Polish team. It pairs well with Sardarapat or Etchmiadzin on the same day.

Base yourself nearby

City

Yerevan

Yerevan is Armenia's capital and the base for almost every trip to the country: a low-rise city built largely from pink volcanic tuff, with a dense cafe and dining culture, serious museums and manuscript collections, Soviet-modernist architecture, and monasteries, wine country and Lake Sevan all within a day's return drive.

Near Metsamor Archaeological Site and Museum