Located 1.5 km east-southeast of the village of Lernapar, Berdidosh fortress (plate IIIa) is the northernmost of the Late Bronze Age sites in the Tsaghkahovit Plain. The place is located 5.08km northwest of Gegharot fortress (bearing 316°), 1.86km northwest along the Lernapar road after its split from the main Yerevan-Spitak road (map quad E3o).
Berdidosh fortress is set on a conical rock outcrop in the northern Pambak hills (map 37). The location provides excellent views across most of the Tsaghkahovit Plain and along the Pambak pass leading to the Lori-Spitak region. At the pinnacle, weathered bedrock juts from the surrounding earth. But soil deposits appear to be significant in other parts of the summit as the fortification wall served to slow erosion.
The fragmentary remains of a circumferential line of stone fortifications encircle approximately 2123 square meters of the hill's summit. Although not visible from the surface for its entire extent, the fortification wall is clearly visible in the available aerial photo where it has a perimeter of 203m and an irregular ellipsoid form. The masonry of the visible exposures of wall employed medium-sized stones (maximum diameter less than 0.5m, greater than 0.15 m) without evidence of mortar or intervening rubble fill. The stones are lightly worked on both faces of the wall but are not set in even courses.
The surface artifacts recovered from Berdidosh were very limited (fig. VI.31) and concentrated primarily on both sides of the western arc of fortification wall. Of the 17 sherds collected during visits to the site in 1998 and 2004, 13 were classifiable to Group A (LB/I1) while 4 were assigned to Group J.(I2b-I3a). A significant quantity of obsidian flakes was also noted along the middle and upper slopes.
See: Avetisyan et al. 2000.
Avetisyan et al. 2000.
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