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Document Details :

Title: Regarding Ritual Behaviour at Shengavit, Armenia
Author(s): SIMONYAN, Hakob , ROTHMAN, Mitchell S.
Journal: Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Volume: 52    Date: 2015   
Pages: 1-46
DOI: 10.2143/ANES.52.0.3082864

Abstract :
The Kura-Araxes cultural tradition is reflected in the mountains north, east and west of Mesopotamia from the mid-fourth to mid-third millennia BC. Originating in the Armenian Highlands and its subset the South Caucasus, it developed over that period, and also spread across a wide area of the Taurus and Zagros mountains, down into the Southern Levant, and north beyond the Caucasus Mountains. Despite many decades of excavation of sites relating to this cultural tradition, we know surprisingly little about the societies of the homelands and their relationship to their migrant diaspora. This paper looks at one aspect of those cultures, ritual practice and ideology, to see if it is possible better to define the nature of and changes in Kura-Araxes societies within the homelands, and their possible relationship to migrant communities. The focus of the inquiry is the site of Shengavit in the foothills above the Ararat Plain in Armenia.

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