As far as the promontory of Surb the path either leads over little plains interposed between the lake and the mountains, or crosses the rocky spurs which descend from the range into the waters, forming promontories. Of these spurs the most formidable is that which is scaled beyond Enzakh (Pass, 7600 feet); but the descents to the plains of Kindirantz and Surb are both long and arduous. Beyond Surb the track for the first time follows along the base of an almost vertical parapet of mountain, rising immediately from the water’s edge. This romantic course is pursued for some distance west of Garzik; when the lake is left behind, the Güzel Dere is entered, and you pass almost imperceptibly from the basin of Lake Van into that of the Tigris. It now only remains to cross from the Güzel Dere into the valley of Bitlis, which is done by way of the Bor Pass, 7490 feet.
On the whole the route along the southern shore of Lake Van is by no means an easy one. The principal difficulties to an engineer occur between Enzakh and the Güzel Dere. [↑]
[3] The compiler of the index to Ritter’s Erdkunde confuses this Artemid with the Ἀρτεμίτα ἡ ἐν τῇ Βαβυλωνίᾳ of Strabo xi. 519, which, according to Ritter (ix. 508), is probably identical with the Artemita in Apolloniatis of Isidorus Charax (Mansiones Parthicæ, c. 2 in Geographi Græci Minores, Paris, 1882), and is to be sought in the district watered by the river Diyala, which joins the Tigris near Baghdad. An Armenian Artemita is mentioned by Ptolemy (c. 13, section 21, and c. 8, section 13, edit. Nobbe, Leipzic, 1843).
Schulz tells us that the present village was in his time sometimes called Atramit (he himself writes it Artamit) “par une transposition de lettres qui rappelle un nom fort significatif dans l’ancienne mythologie orientale” (Journal Asiatique, 1840, ser. 3, vol. ix. p. 310). The same traveller was rewarded for his researches in the vicinity by some interesting finds.
In a little valley about 1¼ miles west of the village (une demi lieue), and about a hundred paces from the lake (environ une centaine de pas au dessus du lac), among a quantity of blocks of stone, fallen from the hill above, he discovered a cuneiform inscription, engraved upon one of these blocks. Professor Sayce translates this inscription as follows:—“Belonging to Menuas of the mother Taririas, this monument the place of the son of Taririas she has called” (The cuneiform inscriptions of Van, Journal R. Asiatic Society, London, 1882, vol. xiv. p. 529). Dr. Belck, on the other hand, would render it:—“This abode, which belongs to Tarias, daughter of Menuas, is called the palace of Tarias” (Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, 1895, p. 608).
At a little distance from this block Schulz found another inscription, which, owing to exposure to damp, was scarcely distinguishable. He describes it as being engraved on a large stone on the left hand of an ancient aqueduct, built up of several layers of massive stones, several five or six square feet in height. They are irregular in shape and not connected by cement; but are held together by their own weight. The conduit which they enclose is square in form, and of sufficient height and breadth to enable one to stand up inside it. Schulz endeavoured to penetrate within it, but was unable to proceed further than some twenty paces, the passage being obstructed by a large block which had fallen in from the colossal wall (Schulz, op. cit. p. 313).
The hillside above this little valley separates it, he goes on to say, from a kind of upper terrace, over which runs the way from Van to Vostan, among masses of rock, detached from the adjacent heights. Between these rocks flows the Shamiram Su, an artificial channel which has its source some nine leagues south of Van, and which, after passing through the gardens of Artemid, has been conducted to the immediate neighbourhood of the city, where it debouches into the lake. So far as Schulz was able to follow its course, it was nowhere embanked by masonry (ibid. p. 313). It was on this terrace, at a distance of 1¼ miles (une demi lieue) from Artemid in a south-westerly direction, immediately by the side of this Shamiram Su, and on the road between Van and Vostan, that he discovered the important inscription which reads according to Professor Sayce:—“To the children of Khaldis the gracious Menuas, the son of Ispuinis, this memorial has selected. Of Menuas the memorial he has named it. To the children of Khaldis, the multitudinous, belonging to Menuas, the king powerful, the king of multitudes, king of the land of Biainas, inhabiting the city of Dhuspas. Menuas says—whoever this tablet carries away, whoever removes the name, whoever with earth destroys, whoever undoes this memorial; may Khaldis, the air god, the sun god, the gods him in public, the name of him, the family of him, the land of him, to fire and water consign” (Sayce, op. cit. pp. 527–28). Messrs. Belck and Lehmann render the word translated by Prof. Sayce as memorial: canal, aqueduct. The rock upon which the inscription was found is known under the name of Kiziltash from its reddish hue.
In the village of Artemid itself Schulz saw the remains of the wall of an ancient edifice on the summit of the cliff. According to Armenian tradition it was formerly a residence of the Armenian kings. Below it he found an ancient conduit (Schulz, ibid. p. 311). I have summarised Schulz’s account afresh because Ritter’s summary of it (Erdkunde, x. 294) misled me.
The inscription on the Kiziltash has been photographed by M. Müller-Simonis, and reproduced in his book (Du Caucase au Golfe Persique, Paris, 1892, p. 252). Professor Sayce conjectures that these inscriptions served to commemorate the completion of the works connected with the Shamiram Su, and even goes so far as to suggest that the monuments erected by Queen Taririas may have given rise to the traditions about a great queen which in the course of time became transferred to the mythical Semiramis (op. cit. p. 529).
Dr. Belck has within recent years found four more inscriptions in or near Artemid which have been translated by Sayce (Journal R. Asiatic Soc. 1893, pp. 8 seq.). Two are without importance; the remaining two are in the sense of the inscription on the Kiziltash, and are therefore canal inscriptions.