Karahunj

Karahunj — also known as Zorats Karer, "Army of Stones" — is a megalithic site in southern Armenia consisting of more than 200 large basalt stones, some weighing up to 10 tonnes and standing as tall as 2.8 metres, arranged in a roughly oval formation around a central burial mound with radiating "arms" of stones extending outward. Excavations have revealed burials beneath some of the stones dating to at least the Middle Bronze Age, and the wider site shows evidence of occupation stretching back to the Neolithic.

The site's modern fame rests largely on a 1990s study by the Armenian astrophysicist Elma Parsamian and a subsequent, more elaborate analysis by Paris Herouni, which proposed that 84 of the stones bear precisely drilled holes through their upper sections aligned with the rising and setting points of the sun and various stars at the site's latitude — leading Herouni to claim Karahunj was a sophisticated astronomical observatory predating Stonehenge by millennia, and to popularise the alternative name "Armenian Stonehenge." Mainstream archaeologists have been considerably more cautious, noting that many of the holes appear at irregular heights and angles more consistent with construction or ritual purposes than with deliberate astronomical sightlines, and that the primary excavated function of the site appears to be funerary. The astronomical claims remain a subject of dispute between archaeoastronomers and the site's excavators.