“The Primeval Art of the Armenian Highlands,” presented to the English-speaking reader, is a

revised English version of the monograph published in Armenian by Hakob Yervand Simonyan

in 2023, which encompasses the ancient art of the Armenian Highlands from the Mesolithic

through the Early Bronze Age inclusive. The monograph incorporates all artistic domains of the

highlands that have reached us: cave painting, rock art, works of applied art, architecture,

stone and terracotta sculpture, ceramic ornamentation, jewelry art, and more. As a guide, each

chapter begins with a historical-cultural overview of the epoch, which makes the artistic

domains of the given period and their perception more comprehensible.

It is certain that the region representing a single historical-cultural entity is partially called

Eastern Anatolia by most contemporary researchers, and partially South Caucasus. In both

cases, political circumstances underlie these designations, since in antiquity this region was not

called Eastern Anatolia or South Caucasus. Taking as a foundation the definition of German

scholar Hermann Abich, who, proceeding from physico-geographical and climatic conditions,

named this region the Armenian Highlands, we have applied the designation he proposed.

Underlying this approach is the circumstance that a series of ancient cultures, such as cave

painting, rock art, and various artistic domains of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, Neolithic,

Chalcolithic, and Early Bronze Age, are common to both the so-called Eastern Anatolia and the

South Caucasus. Meanwhile, the western regions of Georgia—Colchis, which is included in

the South Caucasus—constitute an entirely different cultural area, where civilizations distinct

from the cultures of the Armenian Highlands have existed since ancient times. Consequently, it

is logical to call the art of our study area the culture of the Armenian Highlands, whose

northern boundary is the Kura River and southern boundary is the Armenian Taurus mountain range.

Synthesizing more than ten thousand years of cultures in this region into a single unified book

was a challenging yet important mission. Currently, Armenians, Georgians, Azerbaijanis,

Turks, Persians, Kurds, and other peoples live in this physico-geographical environment, each

of whom considers the ancient culture and art of the Armenian Highlands to be the heritage of

their ancestors. Therefore, this monograph should have a wide readership interested in

studying and preserving the ancient art of the Armenian Highlands, which has its unique and

important role in world heritage.