[1] The stages are as follows:—Tutakh—Gargalik, 12½ miles; Gargalik—Melazkert, 24¾ miles. Total, 37¼ miles. [↑]
[2] The calculation is based on the difference between the level of the lake (5637 feet) and that of the Murad at the old bridge of Melazkert (5174 feet). Both levels were taken with the boiling-point apparatus. [↑]
[3] The fall between Tutakh and Melazkert can only amount to about 100 feet. [↑]
[4] This Yusuf Pasha is not the same as the Yusuf Bey who received me at Köshk (see Ch. II. p. 16). [↑]
[5] The original name is Manazkert, which the Turks have corrupted into Melazkert. In the older name there perhaps lurks that of Menuas, the Vannic king, who reigned in the ninth century before Christ (see Ch. IV. p. 71). [↑]
[6] Saint Martin, Mémoires sur l’Arménie, vol. i. p. 251. [↑]
[7] I have transcribed my impressions, as written on the spot. But it is possible that the present aspect of the walls as well as the bridge may be due to the Mohammedan rulers of Melazkert. The great tower in the citadel may well be later than the eleventh century. Still there can be little doubt that the work was carried out by Armenians, and in harmony with the original plan.
Unfortunately almost all the inscriptions have disappeared. We observed a slab of calcareous stone inserted in the north wall, and engraved with an Arabic inscription, but it was much obliterated. A slab of the same material, and in the same condition, containing an inscription, probably in the Syriac character, is built into the Kaimakam’s house. We were told that a number of inscriptions had been abstracted by the son-in-law of Raouf Pasha, Vali of Erzerum.
Outside the citadel, lying upon the ground, we examined a well-preserved cuneiform inscription, engraved upon two sides of a block of granitic rock, unlike any stone found here. I was under the impression that it had already been discovered and translated; so we did not take a copy. I now find that we should have done well to copy it. Scheil (Recueil de travaux relatifs à la philologie et à l’archéologie égypt. et assyr., Paris, 1896, vol. xviii. pp. 75–77) describes and translates an inscription which, he says, was recently discovered at Melazkert by the district engineer, but he does not mention the exact locality. It is an inscription of Menuas, recording a restoration.