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   Nearby village is  Aratashen (till 1978 Zeyva Hayi, church of 1870. S of village is an important Neolithic- Chalcolithic tell.

   Passing   Vagharshapat  on  the   E bypass, 2 km past the overpass is on the left a conspicuous monument to 7 Yugoslav (now Serbian) aviators killed in December 1988 when their plane, carrying relief supplies to the December 7 Gyumri-Spitak earthquake victims, crashed in a field.   Behind  the

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monument, a small mound and water-worn stones marked on the sign as 5-4th millennium BC occupation site, wich is famous as Tsaghkunk or Mkhltapa, partly covered now by a little shed that has become a local shrine. The skyline is dominated by the four cooling towers of the Metsamor Armenian Nuclear Power Plant.  The nuclear plant, not open to the public, still generates about 40% of Armenia’s electricity. About 6.1 km after the Vagharshapat overpass, about two km before the Metsamor reactor, shortly after a gas station, an unsignposted road leads left in 3 km to Taronik (once Zeyva Turkakan), rich in storks’ nests. Turning right in the village, the left after 500 meters, the paved road  leads to a substantial mound 1 km W of Taronik, the site of the Chalcolithic through Early Iron Age settlement of Metsamor, with a small but rich archaeological museum attached. Excavations were resumed in 1998 with funding from the nuclear plant (which pumps its cooling water from next door) in a vain effort to locate a gate (and preferably an inscription giving the ancient name) in the lower defensive wall.  The summit of the mound has an early first millennium BC sanctuary, and there are important remains of pits used for gravitational separation of iron from slag. A little SW is a hill with 3rd millennium BC carvings on the rock indicating the direction of the rising of Sirius. The museum has a treasury in the basement exhibiting jewelry from chamber tombs around the site, and upstairs rooms display the full sequence of Armenian prehistoric pottery, including splendid black and red burnished vases.