Announcer: Welcome to "Joseph Rosendo's Travelscope," Whoo hoo!

Where you join us as we accept the world's invitation to visit.

Both: Santé!

[Cheering] Rosendo, voice-over: Today on "Travelscope," I begin my archaeological journey to Armenia, where I explore ancient sites and bustling markets, meet local merchants and traditional artisans, and celebrate the Armenian heart and soul.

Announcer: Joseph Rosendo's "Travelscope" is made possible by... Emerald Waterways.

It's been said that if experience is the best teacher, then travel is the best experience.

River cruising seeks to immerse travelers deep within a culture while moving gently through it.

With Emerald Plus, in-depth cultural experiences are included on every European cruise.

Emerald Waterways.

And No-Jet-Lag: jet lag prevention.

[Woman singing in Armenian] Rosendo, voice-over: An archaeological expedition is a journey of discovery, and every discovery begins with questions.

The answers lie in the past and the present, and a people's cultural artifacts are the clues.

On my archaeological exploration, I join archaeologists from UCLA's Cotsen Institute on a journey through Armenia.

While today Armenia is the size of Maryland, it once stretched from the Caspian to the Mediterranean Sea, and from Persia to the Caucasus.

Armenia is older than Christianity, and within its ancient borders lies Mount Ararat, the legendary resting place of Noah's Ark, and although now lost to Turkey, the 16,000-foot mountain still stands as a symbol of Armenian persistence.

The Armenian's survival has been forged in the furnaces of war and genocide, and their centuries of struggle is an integral part of their national identity, as is their language, religion, and cultural heritage.

To begin at Armenia's ancient beginnings, I travel to Areni on the Arpa River to Birds Cave, known by archaeologists as Areni-1, the site of the discovery of some of the world's oldest pieces of material culture and presently ministered to by PhD student Kristine Martirosyan-Olshansky.

Martirosyan-Olshansky: Now, the outside of the cave was used for habitation, and from the medieval period, 12th to 14th centuries A.D., we have bread ovens and evidence of domestic occupation.

From 4,000 to 5,000 years ago, we have slab floors, trash bins, but the most important find from that era is a woman's leather shoe... Whoa!

that is 5,600 years old.

5,000-year-old shoe.

Yep.

The interior galleries of the cave were used for storage and burial purposes.

Is this like a cemetery here?

Not quite.

They--This was secondary burial, reburial.

Why would they do that?

We don't know why, but we know that they did.

We know that they would rebury certain parts of their ancestors.

They would bring-- they brought the skulls and the long bones for reburial inside the cave.

Was it kind of like a royal burial ground?

It could be.

We don't know.

It could be ritualistic.

And so what-- what we're looking at here are the containers that the--the remains were put into?

Some of the containers would've been used for the reburial.

Others were used for storage.

We find apricot seeds.

We find walnuts and prunes and grapes, a lot of grape seeds.

And those were preserved here for thousands of years?

This cave is really unique in that it has, um, facilitated the preservation of the organic materials really well.

The water processes that formed the cave stopped about 90,000 years ago.

The second one is the temperature inside the cave is a nice, cool 21 to 23 degrees Celsius year-round; and the third factor is what we're standing on right now.

Really?

What are we standing on?

Animal dung.

What?

Yeah.

Desiccated animal dung.

Ha ha ha!

They used to pen sheeps here and goat, and their dung accumulated and sealed the layers.

You archaeologists are always playing with dung and dirt.

We like our dirt.

You like your dirt?

Yeah.

Is there any way I can help you out?

Grab a bucket and meet me in the trench.

OK. Rosendo, voice-over: I join Kristine in the trenches, where she introduces me to some of the basic archaeological techniques used on a dig.

We can start by brushing today.

Every so often, that's what you want to do.

You just go through the entire trench, clean it up, um, to expose the color and the texture of the structures, because otherwise, you can't tell what's what.

Joseph, what actually you're brushing right now... Mm-hmm.

is a 6,000-year-old wine press.

Wow.

Yeah.

It's the oldest wine press we know of.

Well, I love wine, so that's appropriate that I'd be cleaning up a wine press.

Ha ha ha!

How do they make that work?

I don't see how you can make wine with this setup.

Well, they would have brought the grapes in, and the rim of this basin would have been a little taller.

You see remnants of it right here.

They would press the grapes inside, and as they're pressing, the juices would flow into the vessel.

A few months later, you have wine.

What's it feel like to you as a archaeologist to--to be doing this?

I feel like I'm part of history.

Not only of making history as we're excavating this and learning about ancient cultures, but also part of ancient history because I get to excavate and see how they lived, how they-- try to figure out how they thought, what they believed in, what rituals they performed, what were their day-to-day activities, even what they ate.

How about doing archaeology in your native land?

You're Armenian.

I am Armenian.

It's homecoming every season.

So there's that connection to the land, connection to the history, and connection to the nature.

Of course.

And the people.

And the people.

It's part of my cultural heritage, so I'm very, very proud and very honored to be a part of it.

Rosendo, voice-over: Archaeology is time traveling and connecting the dots of the past with the present.

From the world's oldest wine press, I head back to the 21st century and into the Arpa River Valley, where they have been growing grapes and making wine since the days of the great flood.

[Speaking Armenian] This is Hasmik, and we're here in-- on the Arpa River Valley, and you may recall the story of Noah.

Noah's connected to the Great Flood, but what some people maybe don't know is that Noah is also our first wine maker.

When the ark ended up at the top of Mount Arartat, the first thing he did, being a man who'd had a long voyage, was to plant a vineyard.

Well, Hasmik and her family and all the people in this Arpa River Valley are basically descendents from Noah as far as being wine makers.

They make wine here.

What is--grapes do you use, Hasmik?

What grape do you use?

Areni.

Areni.

Areni.

Can I taste a little wine?

Mmm.

You know, her packaging isn't as good as Napa Valley, but there's no less passion in the wine maker.

And the wine is certainly very drinkable.

[Speaking Armenian] [Speaking Armenian] Drinking with Noah's descendents in the Arpa River Valley.

That's--that's-- that's cultural archaeology.

Rosendo, voice-over: It's clear from my visit to Birds Cave that along with picks and shovels, patience, perseverance, and perspiration are tools of the archaeologists.

Hakob Simonyan, Director of the Center of Armenian Historical and Cultural Heritage... OK, so I take this... Rosendo, voice-over: And Dr. Gregory Areshian of UCLA accompany me to Naver, a Bronze Age burial mound.

He was kind of doing this.

He was kind of taking the dirt off the top of the surface.

Is that right?

OK?

Oh, OK.

So you need to slice it horizontally, yes.

OK, and then you just scoop this up and put it in a bucket, right?

Areshian: And you separate the stones from the dirt.

Oh, OK. Areshian: Because the stones will go and will be thrown away, and the dirt needs to be sieved.

OK, so I put that and-- this is kind of tedious work.

Yes, it is, but that's how we find all the details, and we don't miss any tiniest artifact.

It's amazing.

It's absolutely amazing.

Areshian: That's exactly the amount that you need to have sieved.

Faster, faster, need to get faster.

OK, like that.

Faster?

Mm-hmm.

On the sieve.

Oh.

All the rocks, all the rocks, more rocks.

Life is about rocks.

Let's see.

Let's see.

What?

We found something?

Yes.

It's a peach pit.

But that could be from people just standing around eating peaches here at the site.

Most likely not, because you found it from underneath a rock that was placed there on top of the mound 3,500 years ago.

This peach pit is 3,500 years old.

Wow.

Rosendo, voice-over: The peach pit discovered at Naver and the storage vessels in Birds Cave illustrate that agriculture has long flourished in the Ararat Plain.

Not far from the riverside wine stalls of Areni, the town of Surenavan is famous for its roadside fruit and vegetable stands.

The Ararat plain is the bread basket, the--the fruit basket, the produce market of Armenia.

It is the richest part of the country agriculturally, and here in Surenavan, farmers bring their crops from the field and from the orchards right here to the side of the road, and it goes right to the vendors.

Apricots are so delicious in Armenia that they've actually named the fruit after Armenia.

So it's called, uh, "Fructus Armeniacus."

Actually, it's also-- could be because they think that's where the fruit comes from.

Wonderful... Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.

Mmm.

Delicious.

I don't know how to say "delicious" in Armenian, but delicious.

How about a watermelon?

They'll cut it right open for you.

Look at this.

Mmm.

[Speaking Armenian] [Speaking Armenian] Delicious.

[Speaking Armenian] [Speaking Armenian] Ah.

If you buy enough fruit, you can sometimes get the bonus of a 15-year-old Armenian brandy with your own Cuban cigar.

[Speaks Armenian] [Speaks Armenian] Rosendo, voice-over: In a mountainous, dry country where arable land is scarce, the 50-mile-long Ararat plain is Armenia's fertile crescent where melons, peaches, cherries, and grapes grow, and also, at the ruins of the ancient fortress city of Metsamor, I discover the region is at the source of the Armenian people.

Rosendo: The foundations of this wall go back 3,000 years.

I'm at Metsamor, one of more than a thousand Bronze Age archaeological sites here in Armenia.

People lived here between 3,000 and 800 B.C.

Now, what's significant about this site is at the end of that time, the people living here were speaking Armenian.

And also, what took place at the end of that time, invaders from the Urartu Empire came here, destroyed the settlement, and took the people with them and scattered them throughout the empire, thereby being the precursor and propagator of the Armenian civilization.

This is a very rich site.

More than 25,000 artifacts were excavated here and are in the museum and tell the story of the people who lived here during that time.

There are utilitarian artifacts, and there are ritualistic artifacts.

The reason this is such an important ceremonial site is self-evident in its given name: Metsamor, big marsh.

The ceremonial rituals were tied to the cult of water, which was so important to the people who lived in this hot and dry region.

I've been telling you people have lived in the Armenian highlands for thousands of years, and now I'm able to introduce you to some of them.

The [indistinct] burial site was used from 2,300 B.C.

to 900 B.C.

It was the final resting place for a Bronze Age settlement that was very close to here.

The 1960s when this site was discovered, it was fairly obvious that something was going on here because of the burial mounds, and then with a bit of excavation, they discovered stones, the basalt and--and--and tufa, the volcanic rock, was put in very distinct circles.

The graves themselves were covered with basalt slabs.

Inside the grave, the remains that they discovered told them a story.

Generally speaking, the women lay on the left side, and the men lay on the right side in a crouched position.

Inside the grave site, you'll find personal items.

A woman with her bronze bracelets and then her pottery surrounding her, her burial relics.

It's impressive to me as it would be to anyone to see the real connection between the people who lived here thousands of years ago and those who live here today.

Rosendo: This is fantastic, yes.

And how touching.

A 3,000-year-old bracelet from this--this lady, to be able to hold that.

[Speaking Armenian] And what do you feel about the contribution of your work to Armenian culture?

[Speaking Armenian] Thank you very much [Speaking Armenian] for allowing us to have the privilege of witnessing this and--and everything you did to make it possible for us to have access to the dig here.

It's spectacular.

[Speaking Armenian] [Speaking Armenian] Rosendo, voice-over: Next morning, Gregory and I return to Metsamor and follow the river to Dvin, site of one of Armenia's ancient capitals whose ruins were extracted from layer upon layer of the mud brick remains of previous settlements.

In archaeology, what you get is always more than what you see.

There isn't a single natural feature, what you see here around.

What you see here are remains of different towns built from millennia one on top of another.

So we just didn't walk up a hill?

It's a kind of mound that we Near Eastern archaeology call "tells," and this tell is the largest tell in the Caucasus.

Follow me down through history.

OK. Rosendo, voice-over: From the 30-meter heights of the Dvin tell, each step takes us deeper into the past.

So we came down through layers of history all the way from the 21st century down to 800 B.C.

You remember our visit to Metsamor.

Yes.

So this is exactly the same period of the destruction of Metsamor by the armies of the empire of Urartu around 800 years B.C.

This fortress was also destroyed by the Urartians.

You know, when I came up, I recognized the wall.

It's a very characteristic technique where you have the foundations built of big blocks on top of which walls built of mud brick were erected to the height of 12 to 15 meters.

Let's go and see what is behind that.

Rosendo, voice-over: At the Dvin site, there is evidence of habitation from the third millennium.

Dozens of settlements rise and fall.

They collapse of their own devises, are destroyed by the Urartian Empire, or are conquered by the Romans.

In the second century B.C., again, a small town was built on top of this tell, which lasted for a very short time, because only 100 years later, the famous Roman general Pompey came into the plain of Ararat, burnt down the mounds of Artashat, and destroyed, also, this town.

A lot of burning and pillaging and destruction going on back then.

Many times, many times in Armenian history.

So there was another abandonment...

Yes.

before a new layer appeared, was created here, and this time, several centuries elapsed again... Rosendo: Yes.

until the fourth century when the Armenian king Khosrov came here and built for himself a summer palace.

He built a [indistinct] building, which was at the time an early Christian church inside of the palace.

That's exactly where we stand now.

These are the foundations of this palatial church of the fourth century.

So we're basically walking on the walls of the church.

That could be considered a little sacrilegious, but, I mean, it is what it is, huh?

That's what we are doing in archaeology.

Always walking over sacred stones.

Rosendo, voice-over: The king's summer palace becomes a city of 100,000, a major trade and commercial center, and with the construction and sanctification of the cathedral of Saint Gregory the Illuminator, Dvin becomes the political and spiritual heart of Armenia.

Areshian: Here was the center of Christian religious power in Armenia for the longest period in Armenian history.

We see here in the center the greatest Armenian cathedral of the Saint Gregory the Illuminator, built around 400 A.D. And if we compare it, the main church of Echmiadzin, more than two churches of Echmiadzin would fit inside this cathedral.

From Echmiadzin, the Catholicos moved here to Dvin.

At the end of the fifth century, the Holy See of the Armenian church stayed here for 500 years, and besides the cathedral, there were built two palaces where Catholicos was leading, and most likely in that palace was the great Council of Dvin where the Armenian Apostolic Church was born.

Rosendo, voice-over: Precariously located between the powers of the Byzantine and Persian empires, in 301 A.D., Armenia becomes the world's first Christian country.

More than 1,700 years old and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Echmiadzin is the oldest Christian site in Armenia and the present-day home of the Catholicos.

[Man signing in Armenian] [Men singing in Armenian] [Speaking Armenian] [Men signing in Armenian] [Choir singing in Armenian] What the Vatican is to Roman Catholicism, Echmiadzin is to the Armenian Apostolic Church.

Established in the fourth century by Saint Gregory the Illuminator, the church developed into a way for the Armenians to ward off assimilation by the crusading proponents of the eastern orthodoxy of the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic religion of the Persians.

Throughout the centuries of change and trials and tribulation, the church has been an anchor of Armenian identity.

In recent times, after 70 years of Soviet state-sponsored Atheism, which stifled but did not quash their beliefs, the Armenians' religious faith and its place in their life is stronger than ever.

Echmiadzin and the palace of the Catholicos, the home of the church's leader, the so-called Armenian pope, is Armenia's holiest of holy religious sites.

[Choir singing in Armenian] Rosendo, voice-over: In part two of my Armenia adventure, I explore historic sites, meet traditional artisans, and join in cultural celebrations that reveal the Armenian heart and soul.

Until then, this is Joseph Rosendo, reminding you of the words of Mark Twain: "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness."

Happy traveling.

Announcer: Joseph Rosendo's "Travelscope" is made possible by... Emerald Waterways.

It's been said that if experience is the best teacher, then travel is the best experience.

River cruising seeks to immerse travelers deep within a culture while moving gently through it.

With Emerald Plus, in-depth cultural experiences are included on every European cruise.

Emerald Waterways.

And No-Jet-Lag: jet lag prevention.

For a DVD of today's show or any of Joseph's "Travelscope" adventures, call 888-876-3399 or order online at Travelscope.net.

You can also email us at TV@Travelscope.net or write us at the address on your screen.

Rosendo: Now that we've dug into Armenia together, learn more at Travelscope.net, where you can follow my worldwide adventures through my E-magazine, blog, podcast, and on Facebook.

Stay in touch.

888-876-3399 or TV@Travelscope.net.

It's generally agreed that Armenia was established in the sixth century B.C., and practically ever since that time, the Armenians have struggled to maintain their identity.

In 301 A.D., Armenia became the first country in the world to accept Christianity as their state religion.

About 100 years later at the beginning of the fifth century, the monk Mesrop Mashtots developed the Armenian alphabet of 36 characters.

He had been commissioned by the king to create the alphabet so that they could translate the Bible into Armenian and thereby perpetuate the language and spread Christianity throughout the people.

The Alphabet field outside of Aparan celebrates a connection between language and religion and that historic national event.

[Speaking Armenian] [Speaking Armenian] [Speaking Armenian] That makes the day go by.

Joseph, be careful, because you are actually excavating inside the burial chamber.

I was going to ask you about that because this rock here seems to be a very strange-looking rock.

Oh, you actually found a skull.

A skull?

Yes.

That's part of a human skull?

Part of a human skull.

So why don't you put it back.