Garghadashi

Garghadashi is a mountain in the Zangezur uezd of the former Yelizavetpol (Ganja) governorate, later in the former Mehri (Meghri) district, and currently in the Syunik province. It is located in the territory of the village of Nuvedi (Nrnadzor). The village is surrounded by Garghadashi Mountain. Researcher Hamza Veli found 7 stone inscriptions similar to the Orkhon-Yenisey inscriptions in this area in 1985 and gave detailed information about them in his work “Nuvedi Inscriptions”.

The toponym was coined on the basis of the ethnonym “Gargar” which was mentioned in Strabo’s Geographica (“Geography”), and the word “dash” used in the sense of “a mountain, rock” in Azerbaijani. Studies show that the Gargars are one of the ancient Turkic tribes living in Caucasian Albania. The toponyms “Her-her”, “Khar-khar”, “Khalkhal”, “Ker-ker”, “Kenger” are related to the ethnonym “Gargar”.