Sandikhasar

Sandikhasar is a 3,454 m volcanic cone on the boundary between Gegharkunik and Vayots Dzor, in the eastern Vardenis range. It's built from Paleogene and Neogene volcanic rock. The shape is distinctive: a cone with slopes that descend in steps rather than one even grade, and traces of old glaciation still visible in the relief.

Above the rock, the cover turns to mountain-meadow, the grassy zone found on Armenia's higher slopes. The peak has gone by several names in older sources — Sandukhtasar, Diglelyakan, Dikchapilakyand, Dikpilakyan, Dikhbilan, Tikpilakan among them. The scholar Ghevond Alishan raised the idea that this summit might be the same one known elsewhere as Kot or Kotakar. No one settled the question; it remains a guess.

Sandikhasar lies in Gegharkunik region, on the border with Vayots Dzor, about 12 km south of Maqenis village and roughly 94 km east of Yerevan in a straight line.