Near East14th century BC to 1st century AD · Metsamor, Armavir Province, Armenia

Tomb near Armenia's Metsamor held Bronze Age horse bones and a coin of Augustus

Excavators in western Armenia say the stone chamber was reused for more than a thousand years, though the date of its oldest burial is still preliminary.

A sacrificial foal buried in the Bronze Age necropolis of Gonur Depe, Turkmenistan, around 2400 BC. Photo: John Pavelka from Austin, TX, USA / CC BY 2.0

Near East desk·3 November 2026·3 min read

In brief 3 key points

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Stone tomb held burials from the Bronze Age to the first century AD
Lowest burial had horse bones and a Lchashen-type bronze dagger
Dates are preliminary and no full report is published yet

A stone tomb on private land beside the Metsamor museum-reserve in western Armenia held burials from very different ages. At the bottom, excavators found a Late Bronze Age burial with horse bones and a bronze dagger. Above it lay an Iron Age burial. At the top was a first-century AD burial with gold jewellery and a coin of the Roman emperor Augustus.

The work is run by the Service for the Protection of Historical Environment and Cultural Museum-Reservations. It is a state non-commercial organisation under Armenia's Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport. Armenpress, the state news agency, reported the results on 27 October 2026. The service describes the tomb as a chamber "used over a long period and reused in different periods". That reading rests, for now, on a preliminary dating of the finds.

A stone tomb inside a ring of stones

Excavation on the plot began two years ago and continued this year. The tomb sits right next to the protected reserve, on land owned by private individuals. The service gave Armenpress a short description of the structure.

Bronze boar figurine — A comparable bronze boar figurine of the Lchashen-Metsamor culture, 15th–14th century BC, from Gegharot, Armenia.

“The archaeological structure under investigation is a stone-built burial chamber surrounded by a cromlech approximately 20 meters in diameter. The structure is built of tuff and basalt stones.”
Service for the Protection of Historical Environment and Cultural Museum-Reservations, quoted by Armenpress

A cromlech is a circular arrangement of stones, here set around the tomb. At its centre is a large stone-cist tomb of the same stone. The service measured it at about 6 by 4 metres on the inside.

The finds came out in stages. Earlier seasons exposed the upper layer, which held a Classical-period burial "accompanied by a rich assemblage of grave goods". Armenpress dates it to the first century AD. News.am lists gold earrings, a button and a coin of Octavian Augustus, who ruled the Roman Empire from 27 BC to AD 14.

None of the reports describe the coin in detail or give its metal. None say how it reached Metsamor. The person in the upper burial has not been identified.

Silver Roman coin of Augustus — A comparable silver denarius of Augustus with a capricorn reverse, minted in Spain around 18–16 BC. Photo: Surrey County Council, Margaret Broomfield, 2013-01-16 16:41:34 / CC BY-SA 2.0

The 2026 season went deeper. It exposed an Iron Age layer with the burial of a single individual, grave goods and a large quantity of pottery. The service gives no closer date and does not list the grave goods.

Horse bones and a dagger near the floor

The excavators place the main burial in the lower part of the chamber, near the floor. Based on the preliminary dating of the finds, the service puts it in the Late Bronze Age, the 14th to 13th centuries BC. It does not say whether this date comes from the style of the objects or from a laboratory method. No radiocarbon results are mentioned.

Lchashen chariot excavation site — Excavation site of the Bronze Age Lchashen chariot burial in Armenia, a comparable regional find.

This layer held "substantial accumulations of horse bones" and large quantities of pottery fragments. It also contained belt fragments, bell-shaped pendants, fragments of various bronze objects and a bronze dagger of the Lchashen type. The reports do not say how many horses are represented, whether the animals were whole, or how they were placed.

The dagger type is named after Lchashen, on the northwest shore of Lake Sevan. Its Late Bronze Age cemetery lay under the lake until the 1950s and was excavated after the water level was lowered. The History Museum of Armenia holds a bronze dagger with a sheath from Lchashen. Its catalogue dates that piece to the 15th to 14th centuries BC.

The Metsamor dagger has not been described in comparable detail. It is not yet clear how closely the two match.

Aerial view of the Ararat plain — The Ararat plain and Metsamor town seen from a plane, with Mount Arteni beyond. Photo: Preacher lad / CC BY-SA 4.0

The reserve protects the ancient settlement of Metsamor. It is studied by the Armenian-Polish Archaeological Mission, a joint project with the University of Warsaw. The mission says people first lived there at the end of the fifth or start of the fourth millennium BC. The site was used, with breaks, until the 17th century AD.

Between the 11th and 9th centuries BC, the mission says, the settlement covered nearly 100 hectares and "was a major metallurgical centre". The service has not tied the new tomb to any phase of the settlement.

News.am relays the service's description of the finds as "unique and exclusive". Radar Armenia renders it as "unique and exceptional". No outside specialist has commented in the reports, and the service has not yet published plans, dates or the coin itself.

Sources (2)

Official announcementfrom Service for the Protection of Historical Environment and Cultural Museum-Reservations and Armenian Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport