SHORT SUMMARY

Ashotsk plato has hidden treasures, that we can reveal together and find out how our ancestors live. This territory has huge castle system and pure beauty of nature that has been untoched for thousands years. We can investigate and reconstruct the castle system showing the results of our signtific work in the form of book-album.

IMPACT

By the end of the project we will create a unique touristic path in Ashotsk (Shirak marz) with rich historical and cultural background. Internal an external touristic groups will be interested to visit this new path. At the same time our team's work results you can see in the form of book-album, if you won't be able to visit Ashotsk plato. Together we can reveal a treasures of Ashotsk cultural and history landscape, including

• creation of popular scientific information,
• documenting and preserving the existing information, objects of the ancient site,
• bringing up a new topic in the educational and scientific sphere.

PROBLEM

Ashotsk plato has never been investigated in terms of one historical and cultural complex, though several archaelogical investigations have been implemented on stone and bronze age period (Mets Sepasar, Jradzor, Aghvorik, Hoghmik etc.). Currently, many facts and objects are disappearing and can't be explored any more. We need to reveal, fix and preserve our history. With your support we can form a new perception of the Ashotsk plato in terms of education and culture, as well as create quality content about the region for tourists, touristic, hiking and archaeological groups/organizations.

SOLUTION

Our team is planning to do multi-disciplinary investigation of Ashotsk plato, including

 data analysis using sputnic and old maps information

 field visits and specific investigation on the site

 photo and videographing of the revealed objects

 modelling of the objects (DSM, KMZ format)

 mapping (GIZ) and topography

The book-album obtained as a result of our work will be available to our supporters, and will also be used at workshops, educational seminars as well as will be given to RA state and community (Shirak region) libraries.

TEAM

Our team consists of historians, archeologists and technical assistance. The team is lead by Mr. Levon Mkrtchyan (https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2221-4766).

We have done similiar project in Artsakh and as a result our team has published 2 books (Kashatagh castles in Artsakh Republic, Artsakh Megalitic cultural landscape).

Throughout the work, our team will cooperate with the following organizations:

- Shirak Armenological Research Center,

- National Historical and Cultural Reserve of Museums and Historic Environment Preservation Service.

BUDGET

At the first stage our team needs equipment and basic transportation costs coverage for field visits implementation. First stage financing is 1,300,000 AMD. For the second stage we need to cover our professional team members salaries for working time spent for the project implementation. The second stage should cover 2,500,000 AMD finanancing.

Details of total budget check here