Written on Stone:
The Armenian Heritage of Stone Epigraphy
by Vazken Ghougassian

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The creation of the Armenian alphabet by Mesrob Mashtots sixteen hundred years ago was the main foundation on which our Armenian Christian identity was developed during the following centuries. The alphabet of Mesrob Mashtots gave birth to the Armenian written culture, with the establishment of schools, translation of the Bible and Christian literature, the Emergence of original Armenian literature and the formation of new classes of artisans, such as scribes, manuscript illuminators, parchmentmakers, chancery clercs and inscribers. Therefore, the Armenian written culture is not limited only to our rich literature in classical, middle and modern Armenian, but also it includes any type of record in Armenian alphabet.

Today I will make a brief presentation of the Armenian epigraphic heritage, which is an important part of Armenian written culture, and yet until recently it had attracted limited attention in the Armenian scholarship.

The word epigraphy means inscriptions in general. Inscriptions carved on stones, wood, metal, ceramic, tombstones or plastered walls belong to the general field of epigraphy. They are found on mountain rocks, monuments, fortresses, bridges, church walls, tombstones, church vessels, house utensils, wooden doors and furniture, ceramic objects and gold or silver ornaments. To keep my presentation focused, today I will speak only about inscriptions on stone, which are also called lapidary inscriptions.

Inscriptions on stone or clay tablets are the oldest form of written records in the ancient civilizations of the Near East. Summerian, Accadian, Assyrian, Urartian and Persian Kings have recorded their military campaigns, victories, territorial expansions, building activities, proclamations and laws on stone. Our knowledge of the Urartian Kingdom in Armenia would have been much limited without the 8th and 7th century B.C. Urartian cuneiform inscriptions on stone or on clay tablets.

The earliest known record of the name Armenia was made by the Persian king Darius the Great, in his famous inscription of Bisitun, western Iran, in the year 520 B.C. Greek and Latin inscriptions have also been discovered in different parts of Armenia, including Armavir and the Temple of Garni, dating from late 3rd century B.C. to 3rd century A.D. King Artashes I, who founded the Artashisian Kingdom of Greater Armenia in 190 B.C (3), has left inscriptions in Aramaic letters. From early to mid 20th century, 10 stelae with Aramaic inscriptions were found in Eastern Armenia, most of them around Lake Sevan. All of these inscriptions state that king Artashes, son of Zareh Yervantakan, distributed land to this or that village. These inscribed stelae were most probably aimed to set the borders of each village given to a dynasty by King Artashes. These inscriptions justify the information provided seven centuries later by Movses Khorenatsi, who wrote: “Artashes ordered setting the bounderies of villages and agaraks” in Armenia.

The creation of the Armenian alphabet in 406 would naturally open a new era for lapidary inscriptions in Armenia. The oldest (4) known stone inscription in Armenian alphabet had survived until early 20th century, on the lintel of the west door of Tekor, a church built around 490 by Hazarapet Sahak Kamsarakan. Located in the vicinity of Ani, accross from the present day border of Armenia, this church was completely destroyed in an earthquake in early 20th century (5). Old photos of the church and a plaster impression of the inscription were fortunately preserved in the state Historical Archives of Armenia, copies of which are now printed in several books dedicated to the Armenian architecture.

As the oldest surviving sample of Armenian alphabet, this inscription provides a clear picture of the style of Armenian script in the fifth century. In addition, it helps dating the church of Tekor, which was one of the oldest monuments of Armenian Christian architecture. Furthermore, it identifies Hazarapet Sahak Kamsarakan, a prominent Armenian Nakharar, as the builder of this church, during the pontificate of Hovhan Mandakuni, one of the most famous catholicoi in the history of the Armenian church.

Outside of Armenia (6), the oldest Armenian inscription dating from mid-sixth century was found in Jerusalem, on a mosaic pavement, measuring almost 260 feet in length, which was unearthed in 1894 near the Damascus gate of the old city. The inscription's translation reads as follows:

To the memory and for the salvation of All Armenians, whose names are known only to God.

The reference to “All Armenians” in this inscription could be an indication of a mass grave for the victims of the persian invasion of Jerusalem in 614 or a memorial for a large group of Armenian martyrs like Vartanank. In any case it communicates a sense of patriotism. Furthermore, this, and a few other inscriptions found in Jerusalem, clearly prove an important Armenian presence in the Holy Land as early as sixth century(7).

From late sixth to late seventh century the Armenian architecture enjoyed a glorious period, when some of the best monuments of the Armenian church architecture, including masdara (8), Hripsime, Gayane, Zvartnots, Ptghni, Karmravor, Aruj, Talin and Otsun were built. Consequently, the inscriptions (9) on the walls of churches from that period greatly contributed to our heritage of lapidary inscriptions.

Under Arab domination from late 7th to late 9th century, the political (10), social and economic life in Armenia was disrupted and consequently a large gap was created in the Armenian cultural life, including the literature and architecture. But with the re-emergence of Bagratunis in the second half of the 9th century (11), the Armenian cultural life blossomed again and continued its course of development for the following six centuries, under Armenian kings and princes or under foreign domination (12). During these centuries hundreds of churches, monasteries and other monuments were built and besides literature and other forms of written materials, the Armenian written culture was enriched with thousands of lapidary inscriptions.

The Armenian culture experienced another long period of stagnation from mid-fifteen to early seventeenth century, when Armenia was a battlefield, first between Turcomen tribes and from 1514 to 1620 between the Ottoman Empire and the Safavid Kingdom of Iran. Except for tombstone epitaphs and production of a limited number of manuscripts, we do not see any other sign of cultural activity in Armenia during this long period. But following the end of Ottoman-Safavid wars, a movement of cultural revival emerged in both Eastern and Western Armenia, new schools were opened, churches and monasteries were built and scriptorias were established in several monasteries.

Lapidary inscriptions which are mostly found on church walls, khachkars or tombstones, are normally very short records, ranging from one word to a paragraph. Longer inscriptions are rare and still do not exceed the length of half a printed page.

Movses Khorenatsi was the first Armenian historiographer appreciating the informational content of inscriptions (13). Late 13th and early 14th century historiographer Stepanos Orbelian used inscriptions for his work dedicated to the history of Siwnik. The third book of the Chronicle of Zakaria Sarkavag Kanakertsi (14), dedicated to the history of Hovhannavank was written in late 17th century, largely based on the wall inscriptions of the said monastery (15).

Scholarly interest towards the Armenian inscriptions started to generate in mid-nineteenth century, when Archbishop Nerses Ashtaraketsi, the future catholicos of Echmiadzin commissioned Haroutioun Vardapet Ter Barseghian to start collecting and printing the inscriptions in all churches and monasteries. Soon other individual Armenian clergymen, travelers and scholars like Bejeshkian, Shahkhatouniants, Jalaliants, Srvantiants, Kajberouni, Smbatiants and Barkhudariants made their own contributions in collecting and printing inscriptions. By the end of the 19th century, almost 2000 inscriptions were collected and printed. The first scientific (16) approach for the collection of inscriptions was made by Hovsep Orpeli, who in 1906 joined the archeological team headed by Nicholas Marr at Ani, the famous capital of Bagratuni Kingdom. Having assumed the task of studying the inscriptions of Ani, Orbeli established a number of guidelines for the work and thus created a scientific method for collecting, studying and publishing Armenian inscriptions (17). His work on the inscriptions of Ani remained unpublished until 1960, when the Academy of Sciences of Armenia started the monumental publication of Tivan Hay Vimagrutian series. To this date, only eight volumes of that series are published, with more than six thousand inscriptions collected from the city of Ani, the shores of Lake Sevan and the regions of Ijevan, Vayots Tsor, Zangezour and Artsakh. At least a few thousand more inscriptions from other parts of the republic of Armenia remain unpublished (18).

Wall inscriptions are short statements, primarily aimed to record the name of the given church, the date of its construction, the names of the King, Queen, Prince, Princess, Bishop or a lay or Clergy sponsor who commissioned the construction and sometimes the name of the architect or the master masson. Without these inscriptions we would not know the names of most of our historic churches, and the dates of their construction (19). Through inscriptions we now have the names of 200 Medieval Armenian architects and master masons, who contributed to the development of the Armenian art of architecture throughout centuries. Most of the renovations and extensions of the churches in later periods are also recorded on walls, providing us with the necessary information to outline the history of a given church or monastery (20).

A prince or a wealthy benefactor sponsoring the construction of a church or monastery, sometimes would also endow a permanent income for the church, by transferring the title of some lands or villages from his fief to the church, including the rights of local taxes collected in those lands and water sources for irrigation. These perpetual donations and rights inscribed on church walls provide us with unique information on some aspects of social and economic relations in Medieval Armenia, which are commonly ignored in the Armenian historiography (21).

Armenian royal decrees, encyclicles of catholicoi, official decrees, decisions and orders, land deeds, texts of agreements or other miscellaneous archival documents on parchment or paper are not preserved from pre-seventeenth century period, except for a few dozens of royal decrees from Cilician Armenia. The only records of official orders, decisions, declarations, agreements and land deeds are preserved in the forms of wall inscriptions. For example, the little information we have about the internal administrative structure of Ani, the famous Capital of Bakratuni Kingdom, are obtained from wall inscriptions, which include references to the city council, the council of elders and other related bodies and officials in Ani (22). Another example would be the inscriptions of Kantsasar monastery in Artsakh. In the nineteenth century, as a result of land disputes with the monastery, the begs of Khachen destroyed fifteen wall inscriptions related to land donations to the monastery, fearing that the (23) Russian court would accept them as evidence of ownership and would decide in favor of the monastery (24).

Like minor chronicles and manuscript colophons, wall inscriptions provide little details on many aspects of life in Armenia, which are generally ignored by our historiographers, and therefore they have suplimentary source value for our history.

In surveying the informational content of the inscriptions, it is interesting to also note that until 10th century, the churches are built “in memory and for the salvation of the soul of the donor”, but as of the 11th century, not only the original donor, but also later donors have gained the right of a memorial service at the church each year, until the end of the world (25).

The tradition of wall inscriptions is more unique for Eastern Armenia. While on the walls of the monastery of Sanahin (26) alone 190 inscriptions are counted, the famous church of Aghtamar has (27) no inscriptions on its walls, except for the names of prophets, apostles and saints next to their respective sculptures. The (28) only inscription that I know of in Aghtamar is on the entrance of an extention, built by Catholicos Tovma of Aghtamar in 1763 (29).

In Western Armenia and Cilicia miscellaneous records were normally kept on the end pages or blanc spaces of manuscripts and therefore wall inscriptions were modest in numbers and content. (30) And if we consider the loss of a large number of Armenian manuscripts during the Genocide and the subsequent Turkish vandalism of Armenian churches and cemeteries in Western Armenia and Cilicia (31), we understand the lament of our former Prelate, Archbishop Mesrob Ashjian of blessed memory, who wrote:

In June 1997, I went for a twenty days pilgrimage to the country of our fathers, Western Armenia. I was in Cilicia, the region of Sasoun, Vaspurakan, Ani and other places. I had many reasons to pray, to cry and to protest. But above all that, I had a great suffering. There were no graves. Turkey, the evil of dessert who has occupied our country, not only has destroyed and ruined our buildings, villages, towns, churches and centers of light, but also has systematically destroyed our graves. There, our fathers do not have graves and toombstones. There are no inscriptions, there is no history.

Besides their textual contents, the lapidary inscriptions with Armenian letters are very important material sources for the history of the Armenian people both in Armenia and the diaspora. Inscriptions on rocks or large slabs of stone built in walls or laid on graves usually remain at the place of their origin. Sometimes, due to natural causes, stones may crack. More often inscriptions on stone are scratched or destroyed due to human ignorance, vandalism or national animosity. But most of them remain in their place, survive for many centuries and become useful as the most dependable material sources in geopolitical, religious, social, demographic and other aspects of our history. To be more clear, I would like to present a few examples (32).

We all know that the present day Republic of Artsakh is only a small part of our historical lands which were occupied by Azerbaijan. For decades Azeri historians tried to disprove our territorial claims by creating a fictitious history. But following the liberation of Kalbajar (33), Lachin, Ghubatli, Zangelan and Fizuli in 1992 and 1993, an Armenian scholar named Samvel Garabedian, assisted only by a few volunteers, in a three year period was able to discover (34), identify and record 1700 Armenian monuments in the said territories alone (35). Most of these monuments were ruined and were identified largely based on fragments of inscriptions.

During the previous two decades under soviet rule, Garabedian had also managed to see (36), study and record hundreds of old Armenian villages and monuments in Northern Artsakh and the adjacent territories of historical Aghvank on the right banks of Kura River. A three volume and yet only partial publication of his monumental (37) work strongly prove that these lands were Armenian lands and were mainly populated by Armenians until early 20th century.

Another example can be taken from Georgia, where, for many centuries Armenians have lived side by side with the Georgians, and the architectural style of Armenian and Georgian churches are almost identical.

In 1930’s during the reign of Stalin, the centuries old Armenian cemetery of Khojivank in the Havlabar neighborhood of Tiflis was completely destroyed and converted to a public park. Thousands of tombstones with inscriptions, including the tombstones of many 19th and early 20th century Armenian writers were used for the building of walls on the banks of Kura river which flows through Tiflis. Still some pieces with Armenian inscriptions are visible on the said walls.

Most recently, the Georgian church is aggressively trying to confiscate Armenian churches. The example of Norashen church of Tiflis was the subject of a news article a few weeks ago. According to the news, a Georgian priest, with the blessing of his patriarch has invaded the Armenian church and has erased the 18th century famous wall paintings of Hovnatanians in that church. He has also dumped old tombstones with Georgian inscriptions in the courtyard of the church to claim it as a Georgian church.

Following the fall of the Bakratuni Kingdom in 11th century, dispersion of Armenians around the world, from Cilicia to Crimea (38), Eastern and Central Europe, Russia, Iran, India and all the way to Indonesia Malaysia and Singapore can be best traced through inscriptions on church walls or tombstone epitaphs.

The Armenian inscriptions at Sourp Hreshtakabet church of Cafa, Crimea, put the date of construction of the church in 1408 (39). A three line Armenian inscription on the facade of a modest building identifies the 18th century Armenian church of Amsterdam, which was established by a small community of Armenian merchants from New Julfa and India. The epitaphs (40) of tens of thousands of tombstones in the cemetery of New Julfa are a little explored mine of information for the study (41) of social, economic and demographic history of a community, which is celebrating its 400 anniversary this year.

And finally, I would like to mention the Armenian enlightenment and liberation movement of Madras, India (42), headed by Shahamir Shahamirian and his son Hagop, who established the first printing press in India in 1772 and subsequently printed Üáñ î»ïñ³Ï áñ ÏáãÇ Úáñ¹áñ³Ï (New pamplet Called Exhortation), a consise history of the Armenian people composed in a special patriotic tone aimed for the Armenian Youth, and àñᕳÛà ö³é³ó (Snare of Glory), a draft constitution for the future independent Armenia. Even if we did not know anything else about Shahamirian’s, (43) the epitaph of Hagop Shahamirian, who died in 1774 at age 29, would say a great deal about his patriotism. Laid on his grave in Malaca, Singapore, the inscription's translation reads:

Greetings to you, who read my epitaph. Give me the news of my nation’s freedom, which I desire; if there has arisen amongst us a saviour and governor, which was always my utmost wish in the world; I, Hakob, a descendant of the ancient Armenian nobles, being a son and bearing the name of Shamir Shameriants, was born in exile, in the Persian village of New Julfa, having been 29 years of age came to my estate here in Malaca, where I passed away on July 7th, in the year of our Lord 1774.

In concluding my presentation, I would like to emphasize the urgency for systematic collection and publication of Armenian lapidary inscriptions wherever possible, be it in Armenia or anywhere in the world. In the present age of technology, these inscriptions should be saved and made accessible to the scholarship, because sooner or later they might be permenantly lost due to natural causes, human vandalism and in some countries due to national animosity. To justify this concern, I will present the examples of Armenian villages in central Iran and Old Julfa.

Following the forced deportation of almost half a million of Armenians by Shah Abbas in 1604, tens of thousands of Armenian refugees were taken to the rural areas in Central Iran, including Peria, Char Mahal, Burvari and Keandiman and were settled in more than 130 villages, most of which survived for almost 350 years, until mid-twentieth century. In terms of written records about these communities, very little is found in the archives of All Saviour’s Monastery of New Julfa. Therefore, thousands of tombstones with inscriptions scattered in the cemeteries of these villages are very important for the study of the historical past of these communities. But to the best of my knowledge, no attempt has been made to collect and study these inscriptions (44).

A more striking example is the cemetery of Old Julfa on the banks of River Arax, which marks the border between Iran and Nakhichevan. In the 16th century Julfa was a rich mercantile town inhabited by 2000 Armenian families, until their forced deportation by Shah Abbas in 1604. The cemetery of Julfa originally included more than 10,000 khachkars or other types of funerary monuments with inscriptions. Being under Azeri rule since 1920’s, and in the border zone of the soviet Union, this cemetery was not accessible for exploration. Despite gradual destructions since early 20th century, more than 3000 khachkars existed in this cemetery until November 1998 (45), when Azeri crews, equipped with bulldozers and other heavy machinery, were observed for several days from the Iranian side of the border, in conducting systematic destruction of hundreds of monuments and transporting the broken stones to unknown destinations on board cargo trains. These barbaric acts were stopped when protests were made through Unesco and other international circles. But four years later, (46) in November 2002 the Azeris descended again on this cemetery turning all the remaining monuments into piles of gravel (47).

A few khatchkars smuggled out of this historic cemetery during Soviet period, are now standing in Etchmiadzin as a reminder of the glorious past of Old Julfa.