Marmaschen
Marmaschen ( Armenian Մարմաշեն ), also Marmashen Vank , is a former monastery in the northwestern Armenian province of Shirak near the city of Gyumri . Most of the three cross-domed churches from the 11th century have been preserved . In addition, there are the ruins of two other churches from this time and traces of a Gawit from the 13th century. The special quality of the building sculpture refers to the school in the then Armenian capital Ani .
location
Coordinates: 40 ° 50 ′ 33.7 " N , 43 ° 45 ′ 20.8" E
Marmaschen Monastery is located in a picturesque valley of the Achurjan (Axurean), a left tributary of the Aras, a few kilometers from the Turkish border. The side road to Amasia, which branches off the M1 leading to Georgia in a north-westerly direction in the city of Gyumri , leads through a flat country with grain and potato fields and after eight kilometers passes the village of Marmaschen on the left. Two kilometers further, in the next village of Vahramberd, a road branches off to the left at an acute angle, which initially heads back south towards the village of Marmaschen at the altitude and then, following a few switchbacks into the valley, reaches the monastery after 2.5 kilometers. The direct distance between the monastery and the village of the same name is less than a kilometer.
While the rocky slopes, which are dry in summer, are grazed by cattle, an oasis-like strip with green vegetation stretches through near-surface groundwater in the valley floor. The monastery buildings are surrounded by trees, a little upstream a plantation with apple trees extends to the river, which has cut into a narrow canyon here. Around 100 meters below the monastery, the river, which flows around the monastery in an arc to the west, is dammed up at a small dam.
The village of Marmaschen with 2155 inhabitants according to the official statistics from January 2012 is on the level above the monastery. The place has existed since the beginning of the 20th century at the latest. It consists of farmsteads with vegetable gardens, cattle stalls and on the edge of a settlement with old makeshift shelters that were set up for the homeless of the Spitak earthquake in 1988 .
In the Bronze Age (3rd millennium BC) the valley of the Achurjan northwest of Gyumri was an old traffic route. Early Bronze Age settlements were discovered at Gyumri, Marmaschen, Vahramaberd, Horom and Haritsch ( Haritschavank ) , among others . The Urartians laid in the 1st millennium BC A series of fortresses up to the plain of Tsaghkahovit southeast of here. Inscriptions of the Urartian king Argišti I (ruled around 785–753 BC) were found in Spandarian (near Artik ) and on the rocky slope below the village of Marmaschen.
history
In the 9th century, the Bagratids took advantage of a weakness of the Arab caliphate of Baghdad , which until then had ruled northern Armenia, and crowned Ashot I as the first Armenian king of the Bagratid dynasty, which now ruled from Ani. With the economic heyday that followed, a number of monasteries emerged in the 10th century, which functioned as fortified bases for the Armenian princes. The buildings of the first complex were grouped around relatively small jacketed cross-domed churches, whose cruciform plan is enclosed in the rectangle of the outer walls. Their model was the dated 911, now lying in ruins Church of Karkop in the province of Vayots Dzor Province . Around the middle of the 11th century ensembles of outbuildings emerged around a larger central church, for example in the monasteries Sanahin , Tatew , in Marmaschen, which was particularly favored by its location in the fertile Achurjan valley, in Chtsgonk and Horomos (the latter two in today's Turkish province of Kars ). The monasteries were both cultural centers and defensive structures on the edges of the dominion.
The expansion of Marmaschen from an early Christian chapel to a monastery is traced back to Gagik I (904–937). Under his later successor Smbat II (r. 977-989) the great cathedral of Ani was completed and according to the historian Samuel von Ani in Marmaschen a single building in the years 989 to 994. The cathedral ( Katoghike ) of Marmaschen was after an inscription dated 1029 on the south facade was inaugurated this year. The inscription shows that Prince Vahram Pahlavuni (967-1045), the leader ( Sparapet ) of the army of the King of Ani, built the monastery, but no information is given about the existing buildings. The Pahlavunis chose Marmaschen as their family's burial site. The Pahlavuni dynasty was a branch of the Bagratids with whom they fought for power in the kingdom. In 1041 Vahram managed to repel the Byzantine troops attacking Ani before they conquered the city in 1045.
A little later, Ani fell to the Rumseldschuks , who plundered the Marmaschen monastery in 1064. In the first half of the 13th century, the princely dynasty of the Zakarids ruled the region as vassals of the Georgian kings until they paid tribute to the Mongols in 1236 . An inscription on the north wall of the cathedral mentions the restoration of the monastery by Archbishop Grigor and his brother Gharid, grandson of Vahram, in 1225. It also contains information on the nature of the gifts - from furnishings and cult objects to fields and villages Send donors to the monastery. In the troubled period between 1220 and 1403, the population suffered a total of 15 attacks by the Mongols. Further incursions by Kurdish warlords, Seljuks and subsequently the Ottomans as well as earthquakes in 1139, 1275, 1668 and 1926 gradually destroyed the surrounding walls and the outbuildings, which were no longer repaired until finally only a parish church remained.
It was not until 1888 that, at the instigation of the Catholicos Mkrtitsch Chrimjan, limited repairs began, during which some stone blocks were exchanged and the canopy of the main church was changed. The British traveler Henry Finnis Blosse Lynch (1862–1913) reported on the desolate state of the churches. He found the buildings unkempt, surrounded by rubble and overgrown by bushes, but saw apple orchards nearby. In an illustration in his travelogue published in 1901, the canopy of the main church is present, but the smaller St. Petros Church, standing apart, has fallen into disrepair. An illustration in Josef Strzygowski's travelogue , who visited Marmaschen in 1913, shows the same degree of destruction in the two smaller churches. When the Turks conquered Alexandropol, now Gyumri, in 1920, they are reported to have plundered the monastery.
In the Soviet period after 1945 some restorations were carried out. Between 1950 and 1954, the tuff stones on the roof of the cathedral were completely replaced by new stone slabs. During further work up to 1957, several remains of the wall from outbuildings came to light. Following the restoration practice at the time, the newly used material was smoothed less carefully in order to be able to distinguish it from the original stock. In the 1990s, Italian restorers in Marmaschen and other monuments in the region began to investigate the damage caused by the 1988 Spitak earthquake and then to repair it. The west facade of the main church had partially lost its connection to the north and south walls due to the earthquake, and a wide crack ran through the dome. The team from the Centro Studi e Documentation della Cultura Armena (CSDCA) brought in steel cables to absorb the tensile forces on the walls and the dome, replaced fallen stones in the masonry and filled the cracks with mortar.
Monastery complex
The main church Katoghike in the center of the complex and the smaller St. Petros Church ("Southern Church") a few meters to the south are well preserved. The Church of Our Lady ( Surb Astvatsatsin , "Northern Church") adjoining the main church in the north has been partially destroyed. Only the foundation walls of the fourth church, a round church in the west ("Western Church") remained. About 150 meters north of this group there is still a wall remnant from a fifth church. In the 1950s, parts of the fortress wall that once surrounded the monastery were exposed. The name Marmaschen is said to have been corrupted by Marmaraschen ("made of marble"), although no marble was used, only pink volcanic tuff .
The "School of Ani" is stylistically assigned to other buildings mainly around Ani and in today's Shirak region, including the Marmaschen monastery church of Argina (across the Turkish border), the Taylar churches near the Horomos monastery , and Shirakawan 25 kilometers northeast of Ani and Makaravank near Pemzaschen .
Katoghike
The main church Katoghike , also Surb Stepanos (Saint Stephen ), presumably completed in 1029 , is a rectangular encased cross-domed church, in which the position of the semicircular altar apse and the side arms in the north and south is marked by wide V-shaped niches on the outer walls. Four multi-part wall pillars protruding into the single-nave space, of which the two eastern ones are very close to the apse, are connected to one another by belt arches . The tambour, which is round on the inside and twelve on the outside, rests on this . This construction is one of the archaic domed halls, the most important precursors of which from the 7th century were preserved with the ruins of Arutsch and Ptghni . In the corners, pendentives ensure the transition from the square to the base circle of the drum. The lower area of the rear wall of the apse is structured by a row of blind arcades, between which stepped niches are sunk. The wall corners to the side of the apse are filled with rectangular side rooms with horseshoe-shaped apses. They are accessible from the sides of the apse. The only entrance is on the west side.
On the outside, a canopy towers over the central dome . Its serrated, multi-tiered eaves edge sits with the lower corners on three-part bundles of pillars, which demarcate the twelve wall surfaces of the drum. Windows are only in the four cardinal directions, the other wall surfaces are not structured, which makes the two serrated strips on the eaves and the capitals composed of tori and rollers stand out all the more clearly. The drum of the Katoghike Church in Amberd ( Surb Astvatsatsin , dated 1026) by the same client and the Sergius Church of the Chtsgonk Monastery have a corresponding structure .
A blind arch leads around all the outer walls, the arches of which lead slightly higher than the triangular niches and the windows in the central fields. In the south facade there is a round arched window framed by bundles of pillars, in the north and west facades rectangular windows are adorned by wide rectangular frames, which contain a delicate ornament with vegetable circular shapes and swastika bars. The entire width of the wall field under the south window is taken up by the inscription of Prince Vahram. A lintel stone with palmettes and button bands is part of the design of the rectangular portal in the west, framed by a tooth-cut frieze band . The main church is used for church services.
The roof shape of a porch can be seen on the west wall. Here stood a square gawit with four central pillars, which was probably built in the 13th century and served as a burial place for Vahram, his wife Sophia, and other members of the Pahlavuni dynasty. A memorial stone from the end of the 19th century on the northeast corner of the former Gawit is intended to mark Vahram's grave.
Mother of God Church
Close to the north wall of the main church is the only partially preserved Church of Our Lady ( Surb Astvatsatsin ), which is a repetition of St. Stephen's Church on a smaller scale and was probably built around the same time. The drum and large parts of the north and west façades have disappeared, the remaining masonry has been secured from further deterioration. The tambour was circular and had a conical roof. The dazzle curtain is also a scaled down version of the one on the main church.
St. Petros Church
The church, which stands separately in the south, is a cross-domed church whose cruciform floor plan is enclosed in a rectangle by four straight outer walls. The four corners are filled with barrel-vaulted rectangular side rooms with semicircular apses. A relatively high cylindrical drum with a conical roof dominates the roof. With the exception of a subsequently attached, rectangular relief frieze around the window slot on the west side, the facades are almost unadorned. Only the only entrance in the west is emphasized by a three-dimensional protruding round arch above double wall pillars. It is probably the oldest church in the ensemble to which the historian Samuel from Ani could refer.
Round church
From the round church in the west, the stepped base zone and partly the lower row of stones on the outer wall with a three-step bead profile have been preserved. Accordingly, it was a circular encased Tetrakonchos with four rectangular side rooms. The entrance was to the west. The floor plan corresponds to the Sergius Church ( Surb Sargis ) of Chtsgonk , which was built in 1029 according to the historian Samuel von Ani. The same dating is assumed for this round church. There are doubts whether it was ever completed.
A rectangular wall structure between the round church and the remains of the Gawit is interpreted as a mausoleum .
chapel
On the hill further north are the remains of a chapel with a cross-shaped, uncovered floor plan. It was probably built at the same time as the other churches and had a cylindrical drum and a dome. Part of the north wall with a belt arch has been preserved from it. Some fragments of medieval kachkars are scattered around the ruins . Most of the large tombstones by the ruins date from the 19th century.
literature
- Patrick Donabédian: Documentation of the art places. In: Jean-Michel Thierry: Armenian Art . Herder, Freiburg 1988, p. 562f
- Josef Strzygowski : The architecture of the Armenians and Europe. Volume 1. Kunstverlag Anton Schroll, Vienna 1918, p. 200f ( online at Internet Archive )
Web links
- Marmashen Monastery. VirtualAni
- Marmashen Monastery. Armeniapedia
- Rick Ney: Shirak Marz. (PDF; 1.9 MB) TourArmenia Travel Guide, pp. 7–9
Individual evidence
- ^ RA Shirak Marz. (PDF; 150 kB) armstat.am
- ^ Philip L. Kohl, Stephan Kroll: Notes on the Fall of Horom. (PDF; 339 kB) In: Iranica Antiqua, Vol. 34, 1999, pp. 243-259, here p. 250
- ^ Josef Strzygowski, pp. 200, 219
- ↑ Stepan Mnazakanjan: Architecture . In: Burchard Brentjes , Stepan Mnazakanjan, Nona Stepanjan: Art of the Middle Ages in Armenia. Union Verlag (VOB), Berlin 1981, pp. 78, 84
- ^ Henry Finnis Blosse Lynch: Armenia Travels and Studies. Vol. 1: The Russian Provinces . Longmans, Green, and Co., London 1901, p. 131 ( online at Internet Archive )
- ↑ Josef Strzygowski, Fig. 7 on p. 8
- ↑ Gaianè Casnati: Armenian Medieval Architecture: Earthquakes and Restoration. ( Memento of May 13, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 322 kB) Centro Studi e Documentation della Cultura Armena
- ↑ Jean-Michel Thierry, p. 177
- ↑ Patrick Donabédian in: Jean-Michel Thierry, p. 562f; Marmashen Monastery . Armeniapedia