February
21
/ 2015
It is unknown what words or rites seers in Armenia chanted 3,300 years ago to tell the rich ruling class what the future held, but the chambers they attempted to do their magic in contained a treasure trove of divinatory implements. Archaeologists Adam T. Smith and graduate student Jeffrey Leon, who wrote an article for the American Journal of Archaeology, have been excavating a hilltop fortress in Gegharot, Armenia, which they think was a cult center. Smith is a professor at Cornell University. "The logic of divination presumes that variable pathways articulate the past, present and future, opening the possibility that the link between a current situation and an eventual outcome might be altered," wrote Smith and Leon. They concluded
