There are Shyite Tatars in Transcaucasia, chiefly in the valley of the Araxes, also in the richly cultivated province of Ouroumyeh, the seat of the Christian Nestorians, where they people eight villages. These Shyites call themselves Ali Allahy—Worshippers of Ali—and are not averse to drinking wine.—Ed.
[(4.)] “Nachson.”—Clavijo (Hakluyt Soc. Publ., 80) sojourned for a time in a city which he calls Calmarin, and attributes its foundation to a son of Noah. This place was probably Sourmalou on the Araxes, taken by Timour in 1385. Tutan, the Turkoman who resided here, might have been the “Tetani, Emperor of Tartary”, who, according to Clavijo, had conquered the place, though only a viceroy. There was a Titanus, Vicarius Canlucorum, of the Genoese, in 1449; the Tautaun, Taudoun, of the Avares and Khozars. Two days before reaching Calmarin, Clavijo passed the night in a town called Naujua, where there were many Armenians, which must have been the “Nachson” of Schiltberger, now known as Nahitchevan.—Bruun.
[(5.)] “Maragara.”—There are numerous remains of ancient fortifications on the heights around Meragha. In a westerly direction, at a distance of thirteen miles to the south-west of Tabreez, are the foundations of a round tower, believed to have been the celebrated observatory of Khodja Nazr uddin—defensor fidei—the friend of Houlakon, who transferred his residence to Meragha after the capture of Baghdad in 1258. To this day is shown his tomb,[1] and that of his wife Dogous or Dokouz Khatoun, the protectress of Christians, but especially of Nestorians, in whose doctrines she had great faith (Hammer, Gesch. der Ilchane, etc., i, 82). Shortly after her death, the patriarch, Iabellasa, agreed to recognise the supremacy of the Pope, the act having been presented to Benedict II. by a Dominican friar named Jacob. Mosheim (Hist. Tartarorum Eccles., 92) pronounces against the authenticity of this document, an opinion shared by Heyd (Die Colon. der Römisch. Kirche, etc., 322), on the grounds that it was signed at Meragha. It may, however, be contended that the patriarch might have resided for a time at Meragha, after the fall of Baghdad to the Mongols, considering that his successors had no fixed residence to 1559, in which year the patriarch Elias definitively established the seat at Mosoul; and that a tradition is preserved amongst the Nestorians or Chaldæans of Kourdistan, to the effect that their ancestors, who had resisted Timour, were domiciled between the lakes Van and Ouroumyeh.
In the early part of the 14th century, another brother preacher, Jordanus Catalani, recorded in his Mirabilia (Hakluyt Soc. Publ., 9), that those schismatics had adopted the Catholic faith in several cities of Persia, to wit, at Tabreez, Soultanyà, and at “Ur of the Chaldees, where Abraham was born, which is a very opulent city, distant about two days from Tabriz”. Heyd says that this Ur cannot be Orfa, a town in central Mesopotamia, which has been identified with the Ur-Khasdim of the Arabians (Ritter, Die Erdkunde etc., x, 333); but is more probably the ancient city of Maranda, not far from the lake Ouroumyeh and fifty miles only from Tabreez. But Meragha was, in like manner, at no great distance from the said lake, and only twenty-four miles, or, according to Hadjy Khalpha, seven farsangs from Tabreez; we are, therefore, justified in concluding, that it was this place the friar designated as Ur of the Chaldees, especially as it was a large city and a bishop’s see in 1320 (Galanus, Concil. Eccl. Arm. cum Rom., i, 508; quoted by Heyd, 324). The same cannot be said of Maranda.
Bartholomew of Bologna has given evidence of his zeal, in the fact that many of the Armenian clergy went over to the Church of Rome, and with the view of cementing this union, a new Order, “Fratres prædicatores Uniti”, was founded and affiliated to the Dominicans, whose head-centre was at Meragha. But the theory propounded by Bishop Aïvazoffsky is worthy of consideration, viz., that Ur is no other than Urmi or Ormi, a town of some size, hitherto largely inhabited by Nestorian Chaldæans, and that has given its name to the lake Ourmiah, Ormi, or Ouroumyeh. It is believed to be the birth-place of Zoroaster, who might have been mistaken for Abraham as easily as he has been for Moses.—Bruun.
[1]Abbott says (Persian Azerbaijan, MS.) that the tomb of Houlakou, or its reputed site, is pointed out near the town of Meragha.—Ed.
[(6.)] “Gelat.”—Khelat was taken in 1229 by the sultan, Jalaluddin, after a three days’ siege. Aboulfeda quotes Abou Said, who says that it rivalled Damascus. Bakui (Not. et Extr., ii, 513) extols Khelat for its good water, fruit, and the fish taken from the lake, especially the tamrin, possibly the dorakine found in the Kour, as related by Ystachry (Mordtmann edition, 1845). The numerous ruins in the neighbourhood are of the time when Akhlat was the residence of the Shahy Armen—kings of Armenia; they include those of a superb palace, of gorgeous tombs, artificial grottoes, and of a fortress on the shore of Lake Van. Khelat is now a miserable hamlet occupied by Kurds.—Bruun.
(6A.) Khelat, Ghelath, Ashlath, was long the residence of a suffragan bishop of the Armenian Church.—Ed.
[(7.)] “Kirna.”—On the Gharny-tchaï, a tributary of the Zenga, east of Erivan, is Gharny or Bash Gharny, now an insignificant village, but at one time a place of considerable importance. According to the old Armenian chroniclers, Kharny was founded 2000 B.C. by a prince Keghamè, who named it after himself; but the name was afterwards changed by Kharnig, the grandson of Keghamè, to Kharny. It was here that Tiridates, 286–314, constructed for his favourite sister a superb residence, to which Moses Chorensis (Whiston edition, 1736), the Armenian chronicler of the 5th century, thus refers: “Per id tempus Tiridates castelli Garnii ædificationem absolvit, quod quadratis et cæsis lapidibus, ferro et plumbo coagmentatis construxit, atque ibi umbraculum statuit et monumentum mirifica arte cælatum, pro sorore sua Chosroiduchta, in eoque memoriam sui græcis literis inscripsit.” This remarkable edifice is alluded to by Kiracos of Gantzac, also an Armenian chronicler, of the 13th century, as “the marvellous throne of Tiridates”, in front of the cemetery of Kharny (Hist. d’Arménie trans. by M. Brosset, St. Petersburg, 1870). It is now a heap of ruins, known to the natives as Takht Dertad—Throne of Tiridates.