GYUMRI, MAY 18, NOYAN TAPAN. During the 2005 excavations of Haykadzor, one of suburbs of one-time Armenian capital Ani, a clay salt-cellar made in the 14-15 the centuries was found under a huge ruined rock. According to the specialist, the founded contains a secret of a whole ritual and needs detailed study. This salt-cellar made in the way of an expectant mother was kept from the joint corrosive influence of salt and water. This salt-cellar had a small bowl in its upper part. According to ethnographic evidences, salt-cellars were put in tonratoons (the shed which houses a tonir used for baking bread), at the fire. People acted in this way in the period of pre-Christian times. Those were kept in the Christian times as well but were hiden. As Larisa Yeganian, the head of the Shirak and Aragatsotn Territorial Department of the Agency on Protecting Monuments, mentioned there are pictures of people's body on salt-cellars founded earlier as well, but this salt-cellar is the first on which they are pictured during a round dance. One of the figures is smaller compared with the others, and "it is difficult to say if the figure was made smaller not to cut the circle of the round dance, or they really ment a child, as if it is on the upper part of bearing organ, it may be accepted as a new-born." The dancers are pictured naked and have ring-shaped signs from their back and overhead. According to Larisa Yeganian, those are not crowns as the latters are characteristical only for icons. Larisa Yeganian supposes that those rings may be horns. According to her, during the bronze era there were hearths which were horseshoe-shaped by their form, like a horn, and besides that, were ram-headed as well. Figures pictured on the salt-cellar dance Armenian Gorani that is dedicated to ancestors' memory.

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