MONUMENTS

1999

Sculptor: Aram Gharibyan

The statue of Anania Shirakatsi (7th century), an early medieval Armenian philosopher, astronomer, mathematician, geographer, chronologist and educator, is located near the central building of YSU. The statue is made of basalt, 4 meters high. Shirakatsi is depicted in full height, standing, holding a spherical model of the Earth in his hand.

Shirakatsi believed that the Earth is spherical, and the Moon is a planet devoid of its own light, the Sun is larger than both the Moon and the Earth and is located at a very great distance. He explained the formation of the phases of the moon, the tides and ebbs of the seas, solar and lunar eclipses, natural phenomena, gave interpretations of astronomical Armenian terms, wrote a textbook on arithmetic, studies on weights and measures, the zodiac, geography, etc.

Shirakatsi played a major role in the development of medieval Armenian scientific and philosophical thought.