Archaeological Tourism: It's more than you can imagine | John Heffern |TEDxYerevan

Among the many treasures in Armenia, archeology is an untapped resource, both for academic understanding and development of tourism. Ambassador Heffern describes his passion for Armenian archeology and highlights several sites that can be developed.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

I'm very excited to be here,
proud to be speaking at TEDxYerevan today.

My topic today is archaeological tourism,

which I think has tremendous potential,
tremendous potential for Armenia.

Now don't guess what this picture is,
don't think about this picture.

(Laughter)

It is not hamburger meat,

it is nothing worse than hamburger meat,
I assure you that.

More about this picture in a minute.

What I want to start with is a question,

to set the concepts
for my presentation today.

The question is this,
how long do you think,

how many years do you think,
soft tissue, tissue from a body,

can last in an archaeological setting
in a cave.

How many years?

My friend Boris Gasparyan,

who runs the archaeological institute
here, he's here today,

tells me that soft tissue normally
can last about 500-600 years

in an archaeological setting.

So you can imagine his surprise

when Boris and his team open up a skull,

that they found at an archaeological site
here in Armenia,

and out drops brain tissue.
Brain tissue from a skull

that Boris and his team found
in the Areni Cave in Vayots Dzor Marz

here in Armenia.

And they found this skull
on the six thousand year level.

So what does that mean?
That means that this brain tissue

that normally would only last about
500, 600 years in such a setting,

somehow lasted six thousand years
in the Areni cave.

There’s something really unique
happening here in Armenia,

and the Armenian people
need to know about it;

the world needs to know about it.

So how do we, how does our media
take better advantage

of these archaeological sites,
and archaeological treasures,

both in the area
of education and research,

but also in economics and tourism?

So we have some tourists here,

standing in the entrance of Areni cave.

Well, actually a handsome man
in the middle is Boris, and not a tourist.

So we have these tourists standing

at the entrance to the Areni cave
on this dirt path.

But what do you see
in front of that dirt pathway?

You see various vessels and artifacts,

that I understand are about
5000 years old, maybe 5500.

So the danger is that everybody
that walks on that pathway

is going to damage
some of these artifacts below.

One possible solution is
to install an elevated walkway

along the wall behind those tourists,

and more about that elevated walkway
in a minute.

5500 year old shoe from the Areni Cave

is currently on exhibit
at the History Museum here in Yerevan.

Now, Nike Shoe Company
does not know about this shoe yet,

(Laughter)

and I think when Nike finds out
about this shoe,

it’s going to make a great commercial.

But most Armenians
know about this shoe.

But the shoe is really something
much more than a single artifact

that brings a few hundred more people
to the History Museum every year.

If you go to the source of this shoe,
to the Areni Cave,

you will really see, experience,
and feel something really amazing.

Here’s Dina, I think she’s here today.

Here’s Dina.
Dina’s on the research team here.

She’s the one, I think it was in 2008,

who uncovered that shoe in that small pit
in the first level of the Areni Cave.

She uncovered the shoe in 2008,
but the cave, the Areni Cave

has so much more to offer than the shoe,

and there’s so much in the Areni Cave,

so much in the cave that
hasn’t even been explored yet.

The potential is really immense.

In other highlights of the cave,
this one’s also pretty well-known.

This is the 6000 year old
wine-making equipment from the cave,

6000 year old wine vessels.

And where the white arrow is where
the people would stomp on the grapes

and the juice would run down
into that vessel,

that round vessel in the middle.

And then the juice would be fermented

and stored in the vessels
along the outside.

6000 year old equipment.

That means that these vessels
have been there since about 4000 BC.

4000 BC is 3000 years
before ancient Hellenic Greece.

So that means that in this part
of the region, this part of Armenia,

there was a civilization and culture

that was sophisticated enough
to make wine and to enjoy wine,

3000 before ancient Hellenic Greece.

Another wine story from Areni.
This is the Zorah wine.

You probably know
Bloomberg recently named

this Armenian red wine, Zorah wine,

one of the top ten wines in the world.

(Applause)

The vineyard here is
in the shadows of the Areni Cave,

those hills beyond the vineyard
is where the Areni Cave is.

Zorik, the Italian Armenian
who runs the vineyard and the winery,

is committed to making this wine
using traditional Armenian methods,

the grapes and the vessels,
the ceramic vessels

that we saw in the earlier slide.

Now Zorik is becoming
pretty famous now, right?

He’s got one of the top ten wines
in the world.

So he is often invited now
to wine-tasting events all over Europe.

He goes to these events now, and
as soon as these European vintners,

who've been making wine
for generations hear

that Zorik’s first vintage was in 2010,
three years ago, 2010,

they turn up their nose at this newcomer
to the wine-making business.

Zorik has a response now
when he’s teased this way.

He now says I may be the newest
wine-maker in this room today,

but my next door neighbor in the Areni Cave
is the oldest wine-maker in the world.

(Applause)

So why don’t more people come here?

Why aren’t there students, PhD students,

researchers, and tourists
all over this country?

There’s a lot of reasons,
there’s limited access –

some of these sites are hard to reach,
there’s not much promotion going on,

there’s inadequate resources,
there are lots of reasons.

But one specific reason I want
to show with this slide,

again from the Areni Cave.

This is also the 6000 year old level.

I think on the right side of your screen

you can probably see a couple of vessels

that are a part of that
wine-making equipment.

But what do you see on the left side
of that screen, in that red circle?

I see a passageway that is
totally filled with dirt and rocks.

There’s no way to know what’s
on the other side of that passageway

because the excavators,
the archaeological teams here,

can’t continue their digging in Areni Cave
because they can’t get the dirt out.

When you dig,
you’ve got to do something with the dirt.

They can't get the dirt out
without walking on that pathway

and damaging those artifacts below.

I see on the other side of that passageway

a big cavern with goodness knows
what kind of treasures,

what kind of artifacts there might be
on the other end of that pathway.

But right now we have no way to know

what’s on the other end
of that passageway.

Armenia needs to fix this,

and Armenia’s international partners
would like to help.

Here’s Boris again,
this is at the institute,

the Archaeological Institute
here in downtown Yerevan.

And he’s showing off some
of the treasures from the Areni Cave.

In fact, there are hundreds
of artifacts and treasures

that have been excavated
from sites all over Armenia,

that are currently sitting
in cardboard boxes and shoe boxes,

wrapped in tissue paper
in warehouses and basements,

because there’s no place
to display these treasures.

There’s no place to do research on them,

there’s no place to display
them in institutes

and small buildings in downtown Yerevan.

So here’s Boris,
he’s showing off this textile.

This is a 6000 year old textile
from the Areni Cave.

It has no business being around
so long, six thousand years.

So he’s describing to his visitors --

he’s had some visitors
from the Smithsonian Institution

in Washington, D.C. and
Carnegie Corporation in New York,

some really important
potential international partners,

they are very interested
in what the institute is doing.

So he describes
the preserving capabilities of the cave.

He says the secret is a unique combination
of temperature, humidity, and dung.

Dung, yes, cow and goat dung,

which apparently has remarkable
preservative properties.

My wife Libby is trying to get Boris
to bottle up some of that dung

(Laughter)

into a commercial face cream.

(Laughter)

We’ll see how that sells,
Boris, we’ll see how that sells.

(Laughter)

Areni Cave is not alone,
there are many sites all over Armenia.

This is a place called Kakavadzor,

it’s a newly discovered site,
it’s on the road to Gyumri.

A magnificent open site,
it’s a promontory,

I hope you can see on the picture

there are magnificent gorges
on both sides.

And the promontory points directly
at Mountain Ararat

a magnificent, a magnificent sight.

And the promontory
is full of dozens of altars

and different kinds of carved-out beds
you can see here.

Sacrifices, rituals, goodness knows
what these were used for

because this site
has not been excavated at all.

And look at the picture on the right.

The picture on the right
are two magnificent snake petroglyphs

on flat stone in somebody’s driveway.

There’s a house at the entrance
to this promontory

and these petroglyphs
are sitting right on the ground,

I guess this guy drives
through these things

on his way to work every day.

Where else but Armenia would you have
two snake petroglyphs,

from, I don’t know,
5500 years old,

that’s what this site is,
in somebody’s driveway.

It’s really quite, quite amazing.

So, Kakavadzor, newly discovered site,

5500 years old,
no excavations yet.

University students, PhD students,
universities, all over the world

would salivate to have a chance
to work with the team

from the institute to excavate this site.

What can we do to make this happen,
how can we make this happen?

Wait, hold on, there’s more.

I hope you can see this picture.
This site is in Armavir Marz.

Some of us recently visited this site,
it’s from Google Earth,

the picture is from thousands of feet up,

I don’t know how far away the camera is.

So you can tell this is a huge structure,

a tremendous structure, stone structure.
4500 years old or so.

It’s used for hunting,
or was used for hunting.

You can maybe see on the right side
of your screen an opening

which is where the people would entice
or drive the animals into that opening.

The animals would instinctively
run along the inside of that stone wall

and at this point on the left side
of your screen there’s a big pit.

Animals fall into the pit, whalla, dinner.

This is a hunting structure
from 4500 years old

on a hillside in Armavir Marz.

There are also petroglyphs all over.

As exciting as this site is to see,

there’s something
even more exciting about it.

This site and the analysis of this site
is changing the way,

changing the conversation among
anthropologists and archaeologists

about the origin of human communities.
It’s a pretty big deal.

Why did people come together
into communities or villages,

why did they start working together?

The traditional thought is maybe
it was the introduction of agriculture.

It caused hunters and gatherers
to come together into a village.

But this demonstration,

this was before the introduction
of agriculture in this region,

this demonstrates that people worked
together on communal projects

in communities of one sort or another,

before the introduction of agriculture
is changing, potentially changing,

a revolutionary idea,
changing the way

anthropologists are looking
at this really important point.

And this site is right in our backyard.
in Armavir Marz.

There are many other sites,
there’s Ukhtasar mountain,

there’s Sisian,
magnificent petroglyphs all over,

just to demonstrate again
that the potential is enormous.

There are sites all over Armenia,

a dozen or so
that are being worked on now,

many more than that
not being worked on.

The potential is really enormous.

So here’s my challenge,
the challenge is the Embassy,

we’ve just now received
from Washington about $50,000

to begin work on Areni Cave,
working with the Institute.

We’re going to put a perimeter fence,

protective fence,
around the outside of the cave,

we’re going to begin to install
that elevated walkway

that we talked about on that earlier slide.

Hopefully it will improve access
to the cave,

and that’s a start.

(Applause)

Get more tourists in to appreciate
the sites and the cave,

maybe bring more resources
to the institute,

and allow the resumption
of the excavation,

so we can get the dirt out and see what’s
on the other end of that passageway.

So it’s a start.

There’s another important partner
that’s been working with the Institute,

Michael Gfoeller,
who’s here today with us,

a retired US Ambassador,

he was the Deputy Ambassador.

(Applause)

He was number two here at the US Embassy
back in the late 1990s,

and since he left Armenia,
he and his brother Joe

have been raising funds
for archaeological digs

in the Republic of Armenia.

(Applause)

But they really have been
virtually alone in this effort.

There really is nobody else,
who has been working insistently

to support and work with the Institute
and Boris and his team on his digs.

Other countries about the size of Armenia,

Israel and Cyprus, even little Malta,

have done some pretty good work

to excavate their sites
and conserve their sites

and promote their sites
for education and tourism.

Why not Armenia? Why not Armenia?

So how can we help?

The Institute is working
with traditional partners,

with Embassies and
international organizations

and foundations and universities.

And again, making a bit of a start,

doing some important good work.

But there are lots of platforms out there,
new creative platforms,

where individuals can contribute
to efforts like this.

In fact, Armenia doesn’t make
very good use

of any of these platforms right now.

There’s huge potential for Armenia.

Crowdfunding, crowdsourcing,
microloans, social entrepreneurship,

huge potential including
in this area of archaeology.

And there’s one site that I gather
is about to do a campaign,

hopefully pretty soon, in archaeology,
a crowdfunding platform.

So my plea to you today,

I hope that everybody today
will be leaving Tumo Center,

they will all be committed
to doing what we can

through our organizations,

or individually, through one
of these crowdfunding sites,

to bring these archaeological
treasures to light

and to show off Armenia
as an archaeological treasure.

Armenia is starting to do some good work
in promoting its religious sites,

its historic sites, its cultural sites.

Why not the archaeological sites?

So again, I hope when we leave here

we do more than just imagine
all the great stuff

that you can see at the Areni Cave.

I hope we can go out and
we see it ourselves.

And I hope even more importantly

that we bring that story to the world.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)