Hayk Hakobyan

Hayk Hakobyan is an Armenian historian.

Discoveries

In 1987 he and a group of archaeologists arrived in the village of Hoghmik in the Amasia region to study the area before the construction of the Kaps reservoir began. “The Hoghmik Complex was discovered by accident. I remember it was a very cold and rainy day. We began working and some three hours later a 13-meter-long and half-a-meter-wide platform with bones of sacrificial animals was revealed. We decided to stay,” Hakobyan recalled.

Hakobyan believes the excavations will also reveal what happened during the Hellenistic era – whether it was a synthesis of Armenian and Hellenic cultures, or the Armenians just crudely appropriated the Hellenic culture. “Hoghmik illustrates that in the Hellenistic era we are dealing with a strictly Eastern cultural heritage. The architecture of Hoghmik is much closer to Urartian than to Hellenic architecture. When we analyze our early Christian architecture we try to understand where its foundations come from. The Hoghmik complex proves that the foundations of our architecture are from Armenia,” the historian said. He explained that one of the distinguishing features of the Hoghmik complex is that all the temple roofs are flat, but the central temple is domed. And that is where the cupolas of Armenian churches come from.

See also

*Paganism