Qarahunj - the Armenian Stonehenge

[eilis]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eykOi9OAnPY

The Armenian Stonehenge predates Stonehenge in Britain by thousands of years.
This link is to a New Documentary on History Channel about Qarahunj.

[Lily]

interesting vid, only that they claim it's got to do with aliens from cygnus . OTOH, the vid also says that the henge itself is from around 3000 bc, so about the same as Stonehenge. Wonder who's right now.

If you go to Armeniapedia, it says that Qara=Stone and hunj=henge.
Now this is kind of a chicken or egg question, did they take it from the English, or is this an old, possibly indo-european word. No info is given, except that "henge" does not exist in English which is obviously false.
??

[Dendrias]

The "hunj"-"henge"-thing might be just coincidence or it might be imported with a can of coke from America.

Wikipedia s.v. "henge" says:

The word henge is a backformation from Stonehenge, the famous monument in Wiltshire.

So chances are high that the word "henge" as archaeological term is quite a new one.
S.v. "Stonehenge" you can find:

The Oxford English Dictionary cites Ælfric's 10th-century glossary, in which henge-cliff is given the meaning "precipice", a hanging or supported stone, thus the stanenges or Stanheng "not far from Salisbury" recorded by 11th-century writers are "supported stones". William Stukeley in 1740 notes, "Pendulous rocks are now called henges in Yorkshire...I doubt not, Stonehenge in Saxon signifies the hanging stones."[7] Christopher Chippindale's Stonehenge Complete gives the derivation of the name Stonehenge as coming from the Old English words stān meaning "stone", and either hencg meaning "hinge" (because the stone lintels hinge on the upright stones) or hen(c)en meaning "hang" or "gallows" or "instrument of torture". Like Stonehenge's trilithons, medieval gallows consisted of two uprights with a lintel joining them, rather than the inverted L-shape more familiar today.
The "henge" portion has given its name to a class of monuments known as henges

Zorats Karer seems to have been the name of the site, Karahunj is the village nearby. I found a Karaundzh in Azerbaijan, as well. On the discussion s.v. "Zorats Karer", the "Stonehenge"-"Karahunj"-thing is mentioned to have gone so far, that some people seem to think Armenians have been the first people in Britain. What interesting coincidence with some other topics!

[Corwen]

Very funny video, gotta love the unintentional humour of American pomposity and gravitas! Absolutely hilarious, the funniest thing I've seen in ages! It really seems like a spoof, I'm shocked that it is for real!

A suspiciously tidy stone circle, especially the bit in the middle! If they aren't sure how old it is, how do they know what it was pointing at? God, it would be nice to have some evidence in this film, instead of supposition from people famous for writing books about Atlantis! Then we get a load of tosh about sudden shifts in the earths axis and aliens, wow, does explain a lot about some people's knowledge of history if stuff like this is on a channel called the History Channel. I am genuinely staggered, the so called journalists should be ashamed of themselves.

And aren't pretty much all stones ancient, unless you live on Iceland?

Almost as funny as What the Bleep do we Know, and using all the same techniques of intercutting someone sensible from a university saying something true with some nutter spouting utter b.s. and hoping that some of the credibility of the former will rub off on the latter...

[Lily]

True, the super-accurate inner circle was a bit suspicious. I was intrigued by the holes though which were said to have been used for star sightings (and then they go off on the alien and sudden shifts in earth's axis stories )