Fig. 117. Akantz.
According to the Kaimakam there are no less than 500 houses in Akantz; but I am inclined to consider this figure excessive. A number among them are well built, with good walls and glass-paned windows; and it was a change to erect our camp beds in a clean and airy room. The population is partly Mussulman and partly Armenian. I should say that the former have the preponderance, although not in the proportion which was assigned to them by the same authority of four-fifths of the whole.[3] The Armenians possess two churches and a school, administered by a priest. Several regiments of Hamidiyeh have their headquarters in the town. They are recruited among the Haideranli and Adamanli Kurds. Their enrolment has been attended by the usual result—a general relaxation of the law. Robberies are committed under the eyes of the Kaimakam, and stealing is scarcely considered an offence. While our effects were being conveyed to the lake in a little cart, a clever thief made away with the yoke of the oxen.
The morning of the next day was devoted to preparations, and the whole afternoon was occupied by our excursion to Arjish. The site bears a few points west of a line due south from Akantz, at a distance of several miles. But the track across the plain is obstructed by channels of water which compel you to deviate. Leaving the town by the south side, we paused to admire the cluster of houses, embowered in trees, and backed by the high cliff ([Fig. 117]). A continuation of the same ridge rises behind the gardens and orchards, which are about a mile away, upon the east. Between us and the lake lay a broad zone of alluvial land, of sandy surface broken by green oases. We rode through two considerable villages, Hargin and Igmal. They are almost buried beneath the foliage of tall poplars and forest trees which are supported by a network of irrigation. The last of these two settlements can scarcely be less distant than an hour’s walk from the shore. Beyond them the ground is patched with cultivation, which in turn gives place to a desert, cut by dikes. The ruins adjoin the lake, and accentuate the loneliness of the bleak waste from which they rise ([Fig. 118] from the north, and [Fig. 119] from the south).
Little is left above ground of the once important borough of mediæval repute. The crumbling walls of a castle, a ruined chapel, a minaret are the principal monuments still erect. The method of building is that of a more cultured age. A recent fire had converted the brushwood into black patches. We looked across the silvery waters to the opposite shore of the lake, from which a range of hills rise. Behind this barrier towers a rocky ridge of serrated outline, which, commencing at a point about east of the ruins, extends westwards and groups together with the magnificent chain on the southern margin of the sea. The arm beside which we stood stretched away by a succession of promontories, to spread towards those distant and snowy peaks in the south.
Fig. 118. Ruins of Arjish from the North.
Arjish played an important part in the history of the Middle Ages; and there can be no doubt that these ruins are those of the mediæval city.[4] On the other hand it is quite possible that the name Arsissa, under which Lake Van was known to Ptolemy, may be connected with a much more ancient Arjish, which may well have stood on the high land overlooking the modern town of Akantz. I regretted at the time of my visit, and I have since had reason to deplore more keenly, our inability to protract our stay in the neighbourhood, and to examine the site of the so-called Zernak, or Zerin, or Zernishan, of which I have already spoken. Its situation seems to correspond with that of the plateau of Karatash or Ilantash, where Schulz informs us that he discovered traces of the sites of numerous buildings, and at the foot of which, on the north-east, facing the plain, he copied inscriptions in the cuneiform character, which, according to the translation of Professor Sayce, record the planting of vineyards in this region by the Vannic king Sarduris III., who lived in the eighth century before Christ (c. 735 B.C.).[5] The inscriptions are found upon a series of three tablets, hewn in the rock, some eight feet above the ground. One of the tablets is without any characters.[6] Close by is the cave where a nest of serpents or large lizards are reputed to have lodged since immemorial times, and have been seen by modern travellers.[7] The place is described as being situated about two miles east of Akantz near the road to Haidar Bey.[8] Messrs. Belck and Lehmann, who have visited Akantz since I was there, were brought some objects in bronze, of which one represented a serpent, and another contained cuneiform characters. They were found by the natives among the ruins of this Zernak.[9] It will be interesting to learn the result of the excavations which they appear to contemplate. In the village of Hargin, through which we passed, they have found a large stele, with a cuneiform inscription of Argistis II. (714-c. 690 B.C.). A second monument, containing records of the same monarch, has been discovered by them in the same district.[10] The name Arjish agrees so nearly with that of this Vannic king that one is tempted to suppose that it is derived from it. And we may be rewarded by the bringing to light of a city of Argistis, buried upon the summit of that salubrious plateau of which the cliff backs the houses of Akantz.
Fig. 119. Ruins of Arjish from the South.