Fig. 26. Wedding Party at Alexandropol.
I must not omit a notice of an excursion which we made to the neighbouring cloister of Marmashen. It is a monument of the period of the mediæval kings of Armenia, and is of the same order of architecture as those at Ani. It is situated about five miles north of Alexandropol, on the rocky banks of the Arpa Chai. As we drove over the plain, we remarked that ploughing had not yet commenced, and that the stubble still stood in the somewhat stony soil. Not a fence or other boundary, and not a single tree diversified the expanse of ground. Sowing takes place in April, rains fall in May and June, and the harvest is gathered during July and August. The surroundings of the monastery are bleak and unrelieved by vegetation; the church and chapels are falling into ruin, and rise from among piles of débris. My illustration (Fig. [27]) displays the principal edifice from the south-west and the chapel which adjoins it on the south. A companion but larger chapel on the north is hidden from view,[6] and a third structure of the same order, but more distant on that further side, is beyond the range of the picture. The visitor cannot fail to admire the simplicity of the design of the church and the absence of any excrescences. The device of the niche has been used to lighten the wall on the east, where the plan of the interior requires an apse and two side chapels. Each of the two recesses upon that side has a depth of 3 feet 8 inches; while the similar features on the north and south sides have probably been added for the sake of uniformity. The wall spaces have been diversified with elegant false arcades, and the window on the west is framed in a band of exquisite chiselling. All these features will be familiar to my reader when he has read my account of Ani, and I need not, therefore, dwell upon them in this place. He will also become acquainted with the personages who erected these edifices, and whose names figure in the long inscriptions on the walls of the church. From these we learn that it was built by none other than the great prince Vahram, the hero of the resistance offered by the inhabitants of Ani to the occupation of their city by the Byzantine Cæsar. It was commenced in the year A.D. 988, and does not appear to have been completed until 1029.[7] On the other hand, a memorial tablet, inserted into the wall on the west, contains a well-preserved inscription which we copied, giving the date of 470 of the Armenian era, or A.D. 1021. Presumably the building would have been in use at that time. According to an inscription on the north wall it was extensively restored in A.D. 1225 by descendants of Vahram.[8] The wife of that prince and perhaps, too, his own remains were buried at Marmashen.
Fig. 27. Church of Marmashen from S. W.
The interior, a nave and two narrow aisles, has a length of 61 feet, measured to the head of the apse, and a breadth of 34 feet. The daïs of the apse is not less than 4 feet in height, the face of the daïs being decorated with a sculptured frieze of intricate design. In other respects the masonry is free of ornament, and the walls have been left bare. The name of the cloister is said to be a corruption of Marmarashen, which would signify the marble edifice. Yet the material used is a pink volcanic stone, and I did not observe any marble about the church. A porch extended at one time the whole breadth of the façade, and must have had a length of nearly 37 feet. A prominent feature of this approach were four octagonal pillars, of which the remains still exist. They have a circumference of 7 feet 10 inches in the shaft. I cannot say that I admire the dome, and it is, perhaps, due in its present form to the restoration of the thirteenth century.
[1] The official statistics, based on the census of 1886, give Alexandropol a population of 24,230 souls, of whom 22,920 are Armenians. Only 200 of these are Armenian Catholic. [↑]
[2] Ritter (Erdkunde, vol. x. pp. 438–39) identifies the modern name Shuragel with the country designated in Armenian literature as Shirak. [↑]