The ethnographic collections kept in the History Museum of Armenia contain items that shed light on certain features of the people’s traditions, beliefs and rituals. The museum has samples of votive offerings to saints which differ from the usual oblations. These are covenant gifts, which people took to sanctuaries (church, monastery, chapel, khachkar, sacred tree, a house where there was a sacred corner) to seek help from the saints, to fulfill their desires.

Keywordsvow offering sanctuary healing gratitude iron human figurine parts of body torc cross.

The comparative analysis of the results of investigations based on archaeological and written sources, as well as the new data of mythology and ethnography enable to reveal the cultic sacrament of fortress-sanctuary Dvin. Near the main route Vagharshapat–Artashat the multilayer traditional sanctuary Dvin and the oracle Yerazamuyn (according to Agatangeghos – the historian of the 5th c., – god Tir was worshipped here at the 3rd century BC) were interconnected as a complete cultic complex. In this sanctuary during the Classical period in the actual process of syncretization the cult of the guardian deities of light was manifested in the image of the luminous triad Tir-Apollo-Mithra.

Keywordsmultilayer site Dvin traditional sanctuary world-view perceptions religious syncretization luminous triad Tir-Apollo-Mithra St. Gregory the Illuminator eternal sacrament cult of light.