Dvin
Dvin ( Armenian Դվին ), other romanization Dwin, Duin , until the 19th century Dowin ( Duvin ), is a ruin site in the central Armenian province of Ararat with the remains of a city founded at the beginning of the 4th century and existing until the 13th century. which was the capital and religious center of Armenia until the 9th century. The on the site of since the Early Bronze Age site founded existing (around 3000 v. Chr.) Settlement was initially the governor seat of the Sassanid Empire belonging Nor Shirakan and remained at 640 under Arab domination, the capital of the province Arminiya . After Armenia became a kingdom again, King Ashot III relocated . 961 his residence in the further west located Ani .
From around 480 to 893 Dvin was the seat of the Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church . In the 6th century, two pioneering councils took place in Dvin . In a severe earthquake at the end of 893 the cathedral, the palace of the Catholicos and the prince and practically the entire residential area were destroyed. The Catholicos Georg (877-897) then relocated his official seat to Zvartnots . Dvin recovered from the earthquake and remained a major economic center well into the 10th century, conveniently located on international trade routes. After the Mongol invasion of 1236, the city was abandoned.
The first Cathedral of St. Gregory ( Surb Grigor ), built between 450 and 485 and destroyed in 572, was the largest church in medieval Armenia. The successor building, completed at the beginning of the 7th century, was erected as a domed basilica with three semicircular cones . The 400 hectare settlement area included a fortified citadel hill with the political administration, separated from the religious area around the cathedral.
location
Coordinates: 40 ° 0 ′ 16.9 ″ N , 44 ° 34 ′ 45 ″ E
Dvin is located in the midst of a fertile, intensely agricultural and densely populated plain in the valley of the Aras at 937 meters altitude south of the state capital Yerevan and around 10 kilometers northeast of the provincial capital Artashat . From Artaschat on the M2 expressway , a country road initially leads in a north-westerly direction through the suburbs of Mrgavan and Berkanusch. There the highway H9 branches off to the northeast. From the next junction behind the village of Aygestan, turn right to the south - 5.5 kilometers from Berkanusch - after one kilometer you will reach the village of Hnaberd, on the eastern edge of which you will find the ruins. At the junction straight ahead instead of to the right, the H9 ends two kilometers further in today's village of Dvin. The settlement hill of the excavation site, surrounded by a metal fence, rises 30 meters above the flat plain and is practically the only non-agricultural or built-up area in the area. In addition to grapes, fruit trees, vegetables and grains thrive. To the east of Dvin the plain turns into low hills, foothills of the Geghama mountain range ( Geghama lehr ) up to 3597 meters high .
According to official statistics, 2838 inhabitants lived in the rural municipality of Dvin in January 2008. In the neighboring town of Verin Dvin with 2205 inhabitants, the Armenian Assyrians (New East Aramaic speakers) make up the majority and at the same time the largest group in Armenia. In Hnaberd, directly west of the excavation site, there were 649 inhabitants in 2008. Verin Artaschat (4462 inhabitants) borders the excavation site in the south. From the citadel hill one can see Noraschen (3450 inhabitants) in the east beyond some fields.
history
The name of Dvin in pre-Christian times is not known. The Armenian historian Faustus mentioned the place name Dowin in his work on Armenian history in the 5th century . His contemporary Moses von Choren derived the name from the Middle Persian word for "hill" ( duwīn ), an etymology that is still mentioned today and at the same time questioned. Later authors such as the 12th century historian Samuel Anetsi (Samuel von Ani ) used the spelling Dvin .
antiquity
The oldest traces of settlement in the area date from the early Bronze Age and are found with similar finds from the Kura-Araxes culture in the 3rd millennium BC. In connection with Mezamor, Schengawit and Mokhra Blur, among others. Dvin was part of a dense network of adobe agricultural settlements in the Ararat Valley and on the Armenian plateaus. Vertical stone idols recognizable as phalluses indicate a fertility cult. In the late Bronze Age a fortress was built, the walls of which consisted of mighty stone blocks laid in a bond. At Dvin and Mezamor there was a walled upper town that housed the palace and temple and was surrounded by a necropolis. In the Iron Age in the 1st millennium BC The Urartians expanded the fortified city, which had become a trading post and an important fortress in the Ararat plain. In both cities cult sites were found with rectangular sacrificial tables made of baked clay, on which an eternal flame had obviously burned, and with reliefs depicting figures of gods. A sacrificial altar from Dvin shows a bull's head in the middle of the top row, below it a row of stylized animal figures and at the bottom interconnected semicircles.
When the Hellenistic influenced Artaxids in the first half of the 2nd century BC BC had established their capital in Artaxata (Artaschat), there was also a smaller Hellenistic settlement in Dvin. Dvin only became important in the 4th century AD, after the river bed of the Macaw (presumably there were several river arms) at Artaxata had changed. In 335, the Arsakid king Chosrau II Kodak (Chosrau II the Little, ruled 330–338) moved the capital from Artaxata to Dvin. One reason for the relocation was possibly that the king wanted to reside closer to his hunting area in the adjacent mountain forests. He is said to have created a hunting park ( old Persian paridaida ). Today's wooded national park east of Dvin bears the name Chosraus, who expanded the forest and placed it under protection. His successor Tiran also lived in the fortress of Dvin.
In 387, the Roman Emperor Theodosius I (r. 379–394) and the Sassanid Great King Shapur III divided. (ruled 383–388) the Armenian Empire among themselves. Dvin fell to the Sassanid-controlled area of Persarmia . After an unsuccessful uprising against the great power, the last Arsakid monarch Artasches VI. Deposed in 428 and the Sassanids from now on administered the Eastern Armenian province as one of their Marzbanates and made Dvin its capital. The 430 appointed Persian governor ( satrap ) with the title of Marzban commanded the army and also much of the civil administration including taxation, justice and religious affairs. Members of aristocratic Armenian families (Nacharare) were also able to take over this office, in which control over all of Persarmia was practically centralized. Such a central administration, introduced for the first time, competed with the privileges of the regional ruling neighbors. Of particular importance was the country's administrative archive set up in Dvin. Here the positions of the nobles fearful of their influence were listed, their significance made historically justifiable and thus cemented for later times. According to this list, the Sassanid great king was also able to request the appropriate military contingent from the local administrators.
Early Christian time
According to the sparse sources, the religious policy of the Sassanids in the 5th century does not seem to have had much influence on the city itself, although Great King Yazdegerd II (r. 438 / 439–457) turned the Armenians against him through forced conversions to Zoroastrianism . The Sassanid ruler showed little tolerance for the Armenian Christians. Because of this policy of repression, the Battle of Avarayr took place in 451 under the leadership of Vartan Mamikonians , which ended in defeat for the rebels.
For a good 30 years there was general chaos because the aristocratic Armenian families were divided among themselves into supporters of the Byzantines and the Sassanids. Even within the great dynasties, namely under the Mamikonian and Siuni, there were rifts and some opponents of the Sassanids set out to destroy Zoroastrian fire temples . The family successor to Vartan, who fell in battle in 451, Vahan Mamikonian, was appointed Marzpan in 485, and the Armenian princes were given extensive administrative autonomy and religious freedom, which was guaranteed to them by the Sassanid king Balash (r. 484-488).
In 461, in the 470s or as recently as 485, the headquarters of the Armenian Church was relocated from the previous royal capital Vagharschapat ( Etschmiadzin ) to Dvin. The first religious center before Wagharschapat was Ashtischat in the western Armenian province of Taron (today the eastern Turkish province of Mus ), which was abandoned in 484 in favor of Dvin. This resulted in the division of the city, which is still recognizable today on the field of ruins: The official seat of the Catholicos was next to the Georgskirche on the plain some distance from the Acropolis on the hill, where the secular government set up by the Sassanids ruled.
Even if there were repeated tensions between the Armenian Catholicos and his Persian opponent, the high priest ( mogpet ) of the Zoroastrian magicians , the Armenian church leadership remained in Dvin during the Persian domination and until the 9th century. Persians built fire temples, while historical sources say the first cathedral was built between 450 and 485. The church owned a well-equipped administration with an archive, which developed into the spiritual center of the Armenian church. Another uprising in 572 was carried out by the Armenia this time with Byzantine help against Dvin. The attack was quickly repulsed, but the Persian Marzpan Suren was killed in the process. As a punishment for this uprising, the Persians destroyed the first cathedral.
The formation of political fronts in Armenia between the two great powers was related to the religious controversy during the formation of the Armenian Apostolic Church in the 5th and 6th centuries. The Armenians were present at the Councils of Nicaea (325), Constantinople (381) and Ephesus (431) and had accepted the resolutions. The Council of Chalcedon in 451 ended with a schism , however, and led to the isolation of the Armenians, who did not represent the equality of Christ as God and man, which was dogmatically anchored in Chalcedon, but a monophysitism . At the first synod of Dvin 505/506 under Catholicos Babgen I von Otmus (officiated 490-516) the Armenians tried to make do with a compromise formula according to the Henoticon , an edict issued by the Eastern Roman Emperor Zenon in 482 , the 491 council in Wagharschapat ( Etschmiadzin ) under Babgen I. all Christian groups in Transcaucasia had agreed. So while the Armenian Church at the beginning of the 6th century still agreed with the resolutions of Chalcedon, it had already moved away from the Nestorian Persian Church , which was shaped by the teaching of Theodor of Mopsuestias (around 350-428). In the second synod of Dvin, the Armenians officially rejected the doctrine of Chalcedon at the first session in 552/553, as well as at the second session on Palm Sunday , March 21, 555 under Catholicos Nerses II of Ashtarak (officiated 548-557), in which they once again condemned the opposing position of the Nestorians . This cemented the monophysite direction of the Armenian church. The second Synod of Dvin was of such great importance for the independence of the Armenian Church that an Armenian church calendar was introduced to distinguish it from the Byzantine Church, the count of which began in 551. The separation from the Georgian Church 608, which professed the Orthodoxy of Chalcedon, and the condemnation of the Paulikians at the Synod of Dvin in 719 are also of religious historical importance. The Paulikians were a heretical Iranian movement, which because of their negative attitude towards all cult practices of persecuted in all Christian churches.
In 591 the Sassanids left large parts of Persarmia to the Byzantines. Dvin remained in the Sassanid-controlled area, but the city was now directly on the political and thus the confessional border. While the Armenian Apostolic Catholicos resided in Dvin, an anti-Catholicos named Hovhannes Bagavanetsi, committed to the Chalcedonian doctrine , established himself in Awan (today a district of Yerevan), only a few kilometers away, with Byzantine support. During his term of office from 590/591 to 603 the construction of the cathedral there falls.
The Byzantines briefly conquered the city in two subsequent conflicts: Emperor Heraklios (ruled 610–641) in 623 and Constans II (ruled 641–668) in 652/3. The latter incursion was already directed against the Arabs, who had conquered the Sassanid Empire in the 630s and for the first time 640 Dvin. This is reported by the historian Sebeos , who presumably lived in the 7th century and could be identical with a bishop who had attended a council in Dvin in 645. During the second raid by the Arabs in 642, after Sebeos and Hovhannes, who was Catholic from 898 to 929, 12,000 inhabitants of the city were killed and 35,000 kidnapped into slavery. The Byzantine commander Smbat surrendered to the troops of the Muslim caliph Umar and promised tribute payments. In 654 his successor Uthman took over the leadership of the Arab rulers.
middle Ages
The governor ( vostikan ) in Dvin was the deputy of the caliph of Baghdad . The city was controlled in practice by the Arab tribal leaders who had settled in the Armenian highlands. With the Arabic name Dabil, Dvin remained the capital of the northern Arabic administrative district Arminiya until, during the reign of the caliph Hārūn ar-Raschīd (r. 786-809), it seemed necessary for strategic reasons to move the capital further north to Partaw (Azerbaijani Bərdə ) in 789 to relocate. Dvin became the second capital of the Arab province of Arminiya and remained an important trading center on the Silk Road . As such, the city was mentioned by the Greek historian Prokopius (around 500 - around 562) and by several Arab geographers in the 10th century. In the second half of the 7th century the Armenian scholar Anania Schirakatsi (around 610-685), who spent the last two decades of his life in Dvin, described in his travel diary ( Mghonachapk ) six routes that led from Dvin to different parts of the world.
In the 200 years or so that followed the relocation of the capital, there were occasional conquests and looting by rival Arab, Kurdish and Turkic ethnic groups as well as by aristocratic Armenian families, but Arab supremacy was a relatively peaceful and economically successful time for Dvin. When the Bagratids gained dominance over the Armenian dynasties in the 9th century, they took the conquest of Dvin as their goal, which they achieved under King Ashot I (r. 884-890).
In the second half of the 9th century, Dvin was hit by at least five major earthquakes. According to a chronicle from 1860, the first earthquake in this series, 851, cost at least 12,000 lives. The following earthquakes occurred in the years 858, 863 and 869, with the number of victims for 869 again being given as 12,000. By far the most devastating damage was caused by the earthquake of 893, in which, according to the contemporary witness Thovma (Thomas) Arcruni, 70,000 of the approximately 100,000 inhabitants of Dvin died and the entire city including the cathedral, the residence of the Catholicos, the prince's palace and the city wall was destroyed. Brick buildings were later erected on the site of the cathedral.
The Catholicos Georg (Gevorg, 877-897) then moved his official seat to Zvartnots in the neighborhood of Etschmiadzin . The next heavy blow for Dvin was the conquest by the Azerbaijani emir Afschin († 901) a little later, who turned the city into a military camp. The Azerbaijani Sajidis under Emir Yusuf (ruled 901–928) fought from here against the Armenian King Smbat I (ruled 890–912), who was captured and killed by Yusuf in Dvin. Fights for the city between the Bagratids and Arabs ensued. In 951 Dvin fell into the hands of the Kurdish ruling family of the Schaddadids , who founded their own emirate. After Ashot III. (r. 953–977) had tried in vain to retake Dvin, the Armenians relocated their capital 961 further west to Ani.
A large part of the long-distance trade had moved to the new Armenian capital, but due to its central location, Dvin remained an economic center even in the 10th century. In 1045 the Byzantines conquered Dvin from the Armenian Bagratids, only to lose the area to the Seljuks, who advanced in several waves as early as 1064 . Since the city submitted in time, little was destroyed during the conquest. The Shaddadid princes appointed by the Seljuks as governors rule with interruptions until 1173. After that, the Georgian King Giorgi III ruled . (r. 1156–1184) for a short time and from 1201 to 1203 the Georgian Queen Tamar (r. 1184–1213) the city. Tamar used Dvin as a winter residence. For the first time since Ashot I. 300 years earlier, an aristocratic Armenian family ruled the Zakarid principality at the beginning of the 13th century until the Mongol invasion in 1236. Dvin was completely destroyed for the last time and was not rebuilt later.
Cityscape
The medieval city extended over an area of 400 hectares, the inner city area corresponds to the excavation area in the shape of an approximately equilateral triangle. The path from the entrance in the southwest of the fenced area leads directly to the exposed remains of the cathedral wall and to the two ruins of the Catholicos palace. To the east of this, in a single-storey building, is a museum that contains a small collection of stone reliefs, glazed ceramics, plans and reconstruction drawings, as well as a storage room for recent excavation finds. Farther to the east, the citadel occupied the top of the flat hill. The citadel hill was surrounded by a fortress wall and a moat. The center of the city in the southwest had its own wall ring for protection.
Dvin was first excavated in 1900 by Khatchik Dadyan, a monk and amateur archaeologist who was not particularly reliable in recording his findings. When Josef Strzygowski visited the place in the autumn of 1913, he found only the partially exposed outer foundation walls of St. Gregory's Cathedral and a heap of rubble inside. Extensive excavations were carried out by Varazdat Harutyunyan from 1937 to 1939, who had only published his results in Yerevan since 1947. Excavations have taken place repeatedly since the 1950s. Recent excavations, such as the one in 2009 by the University of California , have focused on Citadel Hill.
First cathedral
At the beginning of Christianization, before the central dome buildings characteristic of Armenian architecture were built, the first houses of worship were built as hall churches or three-aisled basilicas . In his development theory of the Armenian church building types in 1918, Josef Strzygowski started with small tetracones , which in his opinion should come from Central Asia and Iran. According to the requirements of the initial liturgy , the single-nave churches did not require ancillary apse rooms, which later became the standard architectural program as prothesis (storage room for the dead) and diakonicon (priestly room). The earliest surviving, roughly datable, Armenian churches are basilicas from the 5th and 6th centuries. Examples are the basilica of Jereruk (Yererouk) near Anipemza (province of Shirak , on the Turkish border) and the basilica of Aparan (then Kasagh), both from the 5th or 6th century. The Armenian basilicas generally have pillars, not columns, to support the raised barrel vault of the central nave. The oldest building of the basilica of Jeghward from the 5th century was probably covered with a wooden beam construction, which was later replaced by more massive pillars and barrel vaults during a renovation in the 7th century. In the east, the aisles in Jeghward ended in small semicircular apses, that is, without side rooms, comparable to the east end of the first cathedral by Dvin.
According to historical sources, Prince Vardan Mamikonian commissioned the construction of a basilica in Dwin on the site of a temple and probably an older church, which may be the first cathedral and, with a footprint of 30.4 × 58.1 meters on the outside, the largest Armenian Building was. Vardan had the Persian temple from the 3rd century that had previously stood on this site destroyed and the church built from the same stone blocks. The Catholicos Giwt, who came to Dvin in 461, resided here until 471. The construction was probably carried out during his term of office. Further extensions and additions probably go back to the Vahan Mamikonian, who ruled from 485 onwards.
After the uncovered foundations and wall remains, a basilica with seven cruciform pillars in each row and a horseshoe-shaped apse with three wall surfaces protruding over the east facade was reconstructed. There were two entrances each on the long sides and one entrance on the west side. Narrow side rooms parallel to the east wall were accessible from the aisles. The east wall with the adjoining rooms protruded laterally over the longitudinal walls and ended with an arcade that surrounded the other three sides. Transverse side rooms are also known from Jereruk, the Etchmiadzin Cathedral and the Tekor Basilica . The arcades ended in the east in semicircular niches sunk into the wall, while the comparable niches in the basilica of Jeghward were in the interior of the nave. The eastern side rooms and the surrounding gallery were probably part of the construction work under Vahan Mamikonian, whereby the narrow inner walls of the side rooms to the side of the apse indicate that the expansion was planned from the beginning.
The entire building stood on a three-tiered base. It is not known how the first basilica was covered. Only the base of a pilaster with a bulge on which a broken line has been carved remains of its architectural decoration. In 572 the Sassanids destroyed the church.
Second cathedral
After the destruction of the first cathedral, the powerful Armenian prince Smbat Bagratuni and the newly elected Catholicos Abraham I (607 / 8–615), who had been vacant for three years, had a new basilica built against the objections of the Sassanid rulers . The church was completed under Catholicos Komitas, who was in office from 615 to 628. It survived the Arab conquest of Armenia in 640/642 and collapsed in the earthquake in 893/894.
The oldest central Armenian buildings are known from the 5th century. Its square structure, covered by a dome with a tambour in between, became the basic shape of the Armenian central dome churches. In addition to the tambour , which is supported directly on the outer walls (St. John's Church of Mastara , 7th century) or the inside corners of a cross-shaped building ( Lmbatavank , 7th century) , the tambour supported by belt arches over the pillars of a crossing developed . This construction was used on the Etchmiadzin Cathedral at the end of the 5th century and then again on the Theodoros Church in Bagaran in the first half of the 7th century.
The combination of the three-aisled basilica and the four-pillar structure results in the domed basilica or longitudinal cross- domed church based on the model of the Tekor basilica and the Mren Cathedral from 623–640 . The dome basilica was realized in Dvin and in other cases by the conversion of an older basilica, whereby two pillars in each column row had to be reinforced to serve as a substructure for the dome structure. The odzun church from the second half of the 6th century was built from the beginning in this form. An Armenian peculiarity are longitudinal, single-nave domed halls (wall pillar churches) such as the Cathedral of Arutsch , the Church of Ptghni and the Thaddäuskirche of Ddmaschen, all from the 7th century.
In the so-called golden age of Armenian church building in the 7th century, extensions by conches protruding from the side walls led to the classic cathedrals of Talin and the second cathedral of Dvin, which is considered the oldest representative of this type. The existing foundation was partially left in place and a somewhat smaller, completely new type of building was erected over it. In contrast to the straight longitudinal walls of Tekor and Mren, in Dvin and Talin semicircular, polygonal cones protrude from the longitudinal walls. The trikonchos created in this way represents a structurally satisfactory solution in principle to divert the lateral thrust forces in the area of the dome not only via the longitudinal walls.
The second cathedral essentially took over the longitudinal walls and the west wall from the previous building, the length to the east wall with the apse protruding on three sides was shortened by about eight meters. The length of the nave inside was 48.3 meters up to the apse. Four new, centrally arranged pillars supported the drum and dome; the conches protruding over the longitudinal walls in this area reached to the outer border of the former arcade. Neither from this building nor from the first basilica has survived. There are indications of two floor levels with a height difference of 90 centimeters. The apse was decorated with a mosaic of Mary and Child .
Single nave church
To the north of the cathedral you can see the foundation and some bricks of a single-nave church with external dimensions of 24.5 × 10.7 meters, which, like the cathedral, was built over the temple of an ancient Armenian deity. According to the historian and Catholicos Johannes (Hovhannes, around 840 - around 930) von Draschanakert near Dvin, Catholicos Nerses II of Bagrewand, who was in office from 548 to 557, had a martyrdom built for the Christian Persian Iazdbuzib (Yiztbuzit) shortly after his martyrdom in 553. The saint's name, Iazdbuzib, means “redeemed by God”.
The remains of the wall were uncovered and examined in 1937 and 1988, but not secured and are now partially covered. The walls, which are unusually strong at around two meters, carried a barrel vault, which was divided by three belt arches that merged into pilasters on the walls. Remains of the pilaster bases can still be seen on the long walls. The altar apse lay within the straight east wall. There was one entrance each in the north and west walls. On the north side, the east wall was extended by an attached rectangular side room without an apse. It is unclear whether there was a gallery along the north wall in its line of flight.
Palaces of the Catholicos
The palace of the Catholicos from the 7th century was to the west of the single-nave church near the north wall of the cathedral. He was probably under Catholicos Nerses III. (641–661) erected after the previous building of the 5th and 6th centuries, which was located in the south-west of the cathedral, was destroyed in 572. On Nerses III. (called "the builder") also dates back to the founding of the Zvartnots Cathedral .
A central hall measuring 11.4 × 26.7 meters was surrounded by smaller rooms on both long sides. Reconstruction drawings show a three-aisled columned hall with four columns in each row, which supported three square ceiling fields between them. Fragments of mighty stone capitals and bases were found, the pillars themselves were made of wood. Presumably there were wooden beams on the pillars and the ceiling fields were closed by a wooden cantilever vault (Armenian Hazaras ) with a smoke opening ( jerdik ) in the middle, as was characteristic of the rural Armenian residential house type ( glchatun ) until the 20th century . The square ceiling fields are possible models for the Gawite, which was often added to the churches in the west from the 10th century onwards . The basic plan and roof construction were similar to Gregor Mamikonian's palace in Arutsch , which could have been a replica a few years later by the same architect.
The only capital preserved in Dvin could also have served as a model for the two capitals excavated in Arutsch. The heavy side drums of the capital bear reliefs with rosettes made of rolled palm leaves on the front sides . In their outer shape, the capitals correspond to the Ionic order , the ornamentation, on the other hand, shows an Armenian origin. The profile of the column bases indicates an Attic origin.
The Katholikos Palace of the 5th century in the south-west of the cathedral consisted of a portico with four pairs of columns, on the long sides of which a row with five adjoining rooms was connected. On the east side of the room was a raised podium for the Catholicos throne. The walls were made of unfired adobe bricks. The mighty stone pillars supported a wooden roof. The palace burned down.
citadel
The citadel hill, which has been inhabited since the Early Bronze Age, is a tell about 30 meters high in the east of the church town. From the four gates in the medieval enclosure wall, traffic routes led to Ani in the west, Tbilisi in the north, southern Armenia and the peripheral areas in the east. In addition to the seat of government, which was built with limestone and tuff, there was a large number of residential buildings and workshops, which were mainly made of burnt mud bricks or field stone mud walls. King Chosrau had his palace built in the middle of the hill in 335. It consisted of a two-story building with the kitchen, ancillary rooms and the servants' chambers on the ground floor. There was also a separate Roman bath for men and women . On the upper floor there was a reception hall and the living area of the ruler. The walls were double-shelled from tuff slabs with a filling of sand, clay and stones. The mighty surrounding walls made of air-dried mud bricks on stone foundations were reinforced by over 40 round towers, and on the outside additionally secured by a 30 to 50 meter wide moat.
It is possible that the palace of Chosraus was rebuilt at the end of the 5th century under Vahan Mamikonean (r. 485–503 / 510) into a three-aisled basilica with four pairs of columns, the foundations of which were excavated from 1959 to 1961. The internal dimensions were 28.8 × 12.5 meters. At 7.1 meters, the central nave was significantly wider than the side aisles, which were 2.1 meters wide. The building could have served as a church, which is supported by the orientation in east-west direction.
The small-scale, confusing terrain consists of clay hills eroded by the weather, filled excavation fields and unexcavated patches overgrown with scrub. Halfway between the museum building and the top of the hill, in a small brick building, there is a stone staircase with a niche that is said to have served a fire cult in Sassanid times and is now venerated like a Tukh Manuk shrine in local folk beliefs.
Finds
In late Bronze Age graves (2nd to the beginning of the 1st millennium BC) phalli made of tuff stone with a length of about one meter were found. They are symbols of fertility and the power of nature. With some, the tip is designed as a male head. It is unclear what significance they had for the cult of the dead.
Dvin's trade connections are reflected in rich coin finds from all epochs of the city. Most of the objects date from the Middle Ages: jewelery and household goods made of gold, silver and bronze as well as ceramics with animal figures and plants. A glazed bowl from the 11th / 12th centuries. The 19th century shows an upright stork with a snake in its beak, surrounded by greenish tendrils. The motif occurs frequently in Armenian illumination and is symbolic of the struggle between good and evil.
In Dvin and Garni, bird-bone flutes were found dating from the 5th century BC. BC or earlier and were probably played by cattle herders. They are considered the forerunners of the Armenian shepherd's flute blul ( sring ).
A seated musician is depicted on a glass vase from the 9th or 10th century, playing a string instrument in a position similar to the violin. The violin (Armenian djutak, dschutak ) with a pegbox bent backwards could have three strings. It is probably the oldest illustration of a stringed instrument bowed. Also from Dvin comes the picture of a spit violin ( kamantsche ) on a ceramic from the same period, which presumably shows an epic singer ( gusan ).
According to historical sources, a Sergius Church ( Surb Sargis ) is said to have been built in Dvin around 640 , which cannot be located. Finds of capitals with rosettes and basket weave patterns, which were assigned to her, probably come from memorial columns. Two capitals from the 5th to 7th centuries, presumably belonging to stelae, show a round relief of the Theotokos in a medallion . The heavy-looking figures made of tuff have their predecessors in the figure reliefs of the Roman temple of Garni .
The only slender stone cross preserved from the pre-Arab period comes from Dvin, a motif that occurred in Armenian sculpture throughout the Middle Ages, but it was rare. Some important ceramic and sculpture finds are exhibited in the Historical Museum in Yerevan.
literature
- Rouben Paul Adalian: Historical Dictionary of Armenia. Scarecrow Press, Lanham 2002, pp. 178-182
- Burchard Brentjes , Stepan Mnazakanjan, Nona Stepanjan: Art of the Middle Ages in Armenia. Union Verlag (VOB), Berlin 1981
- Paolo Cuneo: Architettura Armena dal quarto al diciannovesimo secolo. Volume 1. De Luca Editore, Rome 1988, pp. 114-117
- Annegret Plontke-Lüning: Early Christian architecture in the Caucasus. The development of Christian sacred buildings in Lazika, Iberia, Armenia, Albania and the border regions from the 4th to the 7th century (Austrian Academy of Sciences, Philosophical-Historical Class, Volume 359. Publications on Byzantium Research, Volume XIII) Verlag der Österreichische Academy of Sciences, Vienna 2007, enclosed CD-ROM: Catalog of preserved church buildings, pp. 112–123, ISBN 978-3-7001-3682-8
- Simon Payaslian: The History of Armenia. From the origins to the present . Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2007
- Josef Strzygowski : The architecture of the Armenians and Europe. Volume 1. Kunstverlag Anton Schroll, Vienna 1918, pp. 163–165 ( online at Internet Archive )
- Jean-Michel Thierry: Armenian Art. Herder, Freiburg / B. 1988, pp. 530f, ISBN 3-451-21141-6
Web links
- Dvin. . Encyclopædia Iranica
- Rick Ney: Ararat marz. Tour Armenia, 2012, pp. 23–28
- Dvin ruins . Armeniapedia
Individual evidence
- ^ RA Ararat March. armstat.am, 2008, p. 216
- ↑ Dvin. . Encyclopædia Iranica
- ↑ Hakob Simonian: Prehistoric and early historical finds in the area of Armenia . In: Armenia. Rediscovery of an old cultural landscape. (Exhibition catalog) Museum Bochum 1995, p. 42, 47
- ↑ Simon Payaslian, p. 43f
- ^ A b Patrick Donabédian: Documentation of the art places . In: Jean-Michel Thierry, p. 530
- ↑ Rick Ney, Tour Armenia, p. 24; also in 452, when Bishop Melite von Manazkert became a Catholic: Josef Strzygowski, p. 152
- ↑ Annegret Plontke-Lüning: CD-ROM: Catalog of Church Buildings Preserved, p. 120
- ↑ Annegret Plontke-Lüning, p. 170
- ^ Burchard Brentjes: Three millennia of Armenia . Koehler & Amelang, Leipzig 1973, p. 103
- ↑ Nina G. Garsoïan: Janus: the formation of the Armenian Church from the IVth to the VIIth century. In: R. Taft (Ed.): 1700 Years of Armenian Christian Witness (301-2001). (Orientalia Christiana Analecta 271) Pontificio Instituto Orientale, Rome 2004, p. 88f (printed in: Nina G. Garsoïan: Studies on the Formation of Christian Armenia. Ashgate Publishing, Farnham (Surrey) 2010)
- ^ Mesrob K. Krikorian: The Armenian Church. Materials on Armenian history, theology and culture . Peter Lang, Frankfurt / M. 2002, p. 32
- ↑ Annegret Plontke-Lüning, p. 142
- ↑ Burchard Brentjes: Three Millennia Armenia, p. 104
- ↑ Dvin: Legend . Armenian Heritage
- ↑ Nina G. Garsoïan: The Early_Mediaeval Armenian City: An Alien Element? ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: JANES, 16-17, The Jewish Theological Seminary, 1984/85, pp. 67-83, here p. 74
- ^ Robert H. Hewsen: Science in Seventh-Century Armenia: Ananias of Sirak . In: Isis , Vol. 59, No. 1, spring 1968, pp. 32–45, here p. 44
- ↑ Mourad Hasrat'yan: The medieval earthquakes of the Armenian Plateau and the historic towns of Ayrarat and Shirak (Dvin, Ani, Erevan). In: Annali di Geofisica, Vol. 38, No. 5-6, November-December 1995, pp. 720f
- ↑ Aram Ter-Ghewondyan: The Arab Emirates in Bagratid Armenia. ( Memento of October 6, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Lisbon 1976, p. 71, table of contents ( Memento of October 14, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Shaddadids. Encyclopædia Iranica
- ↑ Rouben Paul Adalian: Historical Dictionary of Armenia , pp 178-182
- ^ Ulrich Bock: Armenian architecture. History and problems of their research. (25th publication by the Architecture Department of the Art History Institute of the University of Cologne) Cologne 1983, p. 59
- ^ Armenia: Dvin Archaeological Project . ( Memento February 28, 2014 on the Internet Archive ) UCLA Archeology Field Program
- ↑ Christina Maranci: Medieval Armenian Architecture. Construction of Race and Nation. (Hebrew University Armenian Studies 2) Peeters, Leuven u. a. 2001, pp. 97, 113
- ↑ Smbat Bagratuni. Encyclopædia Iranica
- ↑ Stepan Mnazakanjan: Architecture. In: Burchard Brentjes u. a., 1981, p. 66
- ^ Patrick Donabédian: Documentation of the art places . In: Jean-Michel Thierry, p. 531; Dvin: The Church of St. Yiztbuzit . ( Memento of the original from August 8, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Armenian Studies Program
- ↑ Aruch 3: Palace . Armenian Heritage
- ^ Patrick Donabédian: Documentation of the art places . In: Jean-Michel Thierry, p. 530f; Rick Ney, Tour Armenia, p. 28
- ↑ Stepan Mnazakanjan: Architecture . In: Burchard Brentjes u. a., p. 75
- ↑ Annegret Plontke-Lüning: CD-ROM: Catalog of Church Buildings Preserved, p. 114f
- ↑ Rick Ney, Tour Armenia, p. 26
- ↑ Armenia. Rediscovery of an old cultural landscape. (Exhibition catalog) Museum Bochum 1995, p. 90f
- ↑ Vrej Nersessian: Treasures from the Ark: 1700 Years of Armenian Christian Art . The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles 2001, p. 144, ISBN 978-0-89236-639-2
- ^ Anahit Tsitsikian: The Earliest Armenian Representations of Bowed Instruments. In: RIdIM / RCMI Newsletter, Vol. 16, No. 2, Fall 1991, pp. 2-4
- ^ Patrick Donabédian: Documentation of the art places . In: Jean-Michel Thierry, p. 531
- ^ Dvin the ancient Armenian city. PeopleOfAr (photos of objects in the Historical Museum in Yerevan)
