---
title: A Museum Is Going Inside the Armenian Cave That Held the World's Oldest Winery
description: Areni-1 in the Arpa gorge held the earliest known winery and a 5,500-year-old shoe. It is now on UNESCO tentative list and getting a museum inside it.
author: Dr Marina Nani (Editor-in-Chief)
updated: 2026-07-31T01:26:57.207Z
canonical: https://richtravelmagazine.com/article/areni-1-cave-museum-armenia-oldest-winery
image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/areni-1-cave-museum-interior-74711.webp
categories: Food & Culture
content_type: News
publication: Rich Travel Magazine
access: members
schema_type: Article
---

In the limestone cliffs above the Arpa River in southern Armenia there is a cave that has spent most of the last two decades under excavation. Three galleries run more than 40 metres back into the rock, and the air inside them is dry and still enough that leather, rope, cloth and fruit have survived in it for six thousand years. Organic material of that age is rarely encountered anywhere in world prehistory.

The cave is called Areni-1, and locally the Birds' Cave. Armenia's permanent delegation to UNESCO has put it forward for World Heritage status under the title Areni-1 (Birds') Cave: Prehistoric Life and Winemaking in the Arpa River Gorge, and the [nomination is now logged on the World Heritage Tentative List](https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/6967/) as reference 6967, under cultural criteria three, four and five. Days after that, the Gfoeller Renaissance Foundation, the Areni-1 Cave Scientific Research Foundation and the telecommunications company Viva said they would create a museum inside the cave.

## A complete winery, six thousand years old

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