Great thread.
In Armenia - no sideshow when it comes to archeology - I would say Emma Khanzadian, who from the 60s-90s oversaw the excavations of several important Bronze Age towns, including the earliest layer of Garni (famous for its classical Mithraic temple) where a Bronze Age statue-menhir known as a 'dragon stone' (vishapakar) was discovered upright with an Iron Age cuneiform inscription added; the entire Bronze-Iron Age settlement of Elar-Darani between Yerevan and Lake Sevan, a massive 'dragon stone' in a Bronze Age burial ground in the village of Lchashen (on the banks of Sevan), and her life's work, the excavation of a spectacular early metallurgical center in the Ararat Valley called Metsamor (as in Brain Donor's "Metsamor (Birthplace of Metal)"), complete with subterranean ironworks, a cemetery with massive stone phallei, and an incredible rock-cut temple/ritual precinct. For many years she had been working on a sweeping study of dragon-stones; a real passion of hers - I remember her showing my wife and me folders full of field work and research shortly before her death during the post-Soviet economic nadir when there was no money to complete such a project. A great shame she never produced it, but those of us presently involved in the study of these megaliths honor her memory.
Another key archeologist is Seda Devedjian, still with us, who has worked dliginetly for decades excavating the magnificent Bronze-Iron Age tomb fields of Lori Berd in the northern climes of the country, publishing a series of outstanding monographs (as has Khanzadian).
Both of these women, whom I had/have the good fortune to know, are counted among the giants of Armenian archeology.
