For a deminer, an object found in the ground usually represents a lethal threat. For David Simonyan, however, the soil of Artsakh kept more than the dangers left from war.
Simonyan is a former HALO Trust worker, whose career in humanitarian demining began in 2003. Following the first Nagorno-Karabakh war in the 1990s, the soil was heavily contaminated with unexploded ordnance and landmines. Simonyan describes the density of these explosives as being like “sunflower seeds,” scattered thickly across the fields. During one of the clearance operations, Simonyan found his first ancient artifact: a spearhead. Recognizing that the object was not a fragment of modern weaponry, he began his own independent research to identify its origins.
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Source: Armenian Weekly News
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