Mastara
Mastara ( Armenian Մաստարա ), formerly Nerkin , is a village and a rural community ( hamaynkner ) in the northern Armenian province of Aragazotn with 2652 inhabitants in 2012 according to official statistics. In the center of the village, the St. John's Church ( Surb Hovanes ) from the 7th century was preserved, an architectural form ("mastara type") with four conches that was important for the development of the central Armenian building .
location
Coordinates: 40 ° 26 '52 " N , 43 ° 52' 53" E
Mastara lies at an altitude of 1723 meters in a depression surrounded by flat hills in the west of Mount Aragaz . From the M1 expressway between Yerevan and Gyumri , a road branches off to the east around 75 kilometers north of the capital Yerevan and seven kilometers behind Talin . It leads through the center of Mastara, which is just under a kilometer next to the expressway, and further into the foothills of the Aragaz to the village of Garnahovit with a central domed church from the 7th century. The next village on the M1 in the direction of Gyumri is Maralik, 14 kilometers away, from which a road leads in an easterly direction via Pemzaschen to Artik . The basilica of Jereruk , located on the Turkish border, near the settlement of Anipemza, can be reached on a side road to the west . The stony hills, which are only covered with grass, are used as pastureland for cattle and sheep.
history
The area has been inhabited since pre-Christian times, as shown by snake or dragon stones ( Vishap stones), which were revered as idols. In the 1st millennium BC A Urartian trade route ran from the north to the Ararat plain, presumably along today's road past Mastara. The history of the place is essentially linked to its church. The name Mastara is on the local tradition of the two words mas , "a piece" and tara , "I buried" composed and recalls Gregory the Illuminator , the beginning of the 4th century a relic of John the Baptist from Caesarea brought under buried in the place of the altar. The place name can also be derived from mar and t-ar-a , "from God" or "belonging to God". In any case, as with the legends of origin of many Armenian churches, it is a matter of citing St. Gregory, the earliest and most important preacher of Armenian apostolic Christianity, as the founder.
In a poorly preserved Greek inscription on the south wall of the church, the word Peroz was identified, which is said to refer to the Sassanid ruler Peroz I , who ruled from 459 to 484. This would mean the completion (of a forerunner) of today's church and thus the existence of the place in the 5th century. Another inscription refers to Bishop Theodoros Gnuni, who attended the Council of Dwin in 645 . Consequently, the church could have been built in the middle of the 7th century. The surrounding walls of a fortress, which had been built around the church in the Middle Ages, stood until the 19th century and, together with tombs and other finds, speak for the earlier importance of the place. In the 18th century, the churchyard was surrounded by a high fence. The priest of the village had the fence removed in 1889 and the environment prepared, as can be seen from an inscription on the south wall of the Ostkonche. In 1935 the church was closed to believers and served as a cattle shed during the Soviet era . In 1993 it was reopened as a church.
Townscape
In the 2001 census, the official population was 2581. In January 2012, according to official statistics, there were 2,652 inhabitants in Mastara.
In the compact town center, single-storey farmhouses with hipped roofs made of fiber cement panels, cattle stalls and gardens behind walls along winding roads dominate the scene. Poplars and fruit trees thrive in the gardens. There is a secondary school and along the thoroughfare several grocery stores and a pharmacy. The Johanneskirche stands in a walled area in the middle of the village. A little south of it is a small and simple hall church ( Surb Nshan ) with barrel vaults from early Christian times between the houses. It includes a shrine for Tukh Manuk , a figure of a black youth handed down from pre-Christian beliefs. Some tombstones in the cemetery date from the Middle Ages. The ruins of a single-nave chapel probably from the 7th century and kachkars from the 10th, 12th and 17th centuries have also been preserved there.
On a hill northeast of the village are the ruins of a fortress with a single-nave church ( Surb Stephanos ) from the 10th / 11th. Century to find.
Johanneskirche
Origin and Distribution
The Johanneskirche ( Surb Hovanes ) is a central domed church with four conches. Even the oldest central Armenian buildings of the 5th century had a square structure in the center, which was covered by a dome with a cylindrical drum connected in between . The expansion of this simplest basic shape was made by cones on each side, which not only increased the interior space, but also made it easier for the dome's thrust to be diverted sideways. Such a tetrakonchos formed the basis for the development of central buildings in Armenian architecture. As examples from outside, reference is made to Syria and Mesopotamia, such as the Tetrakonchen churches of Seleucia Pieria (middle of the 6th century) or Resafa (beginning of the 6th century).
The oldest preserved Tetrakonchos in Armenia is the new building of the Etschmiadzin Cathedral (Etschmiadzin II) around 485, which has four free-standing central pillars and thus corresponds to the completely destroyed cathedral of Bagaran from the 630s. In addition, small three-conch churches without central pillars were built in the 7th century, such as the Church of Our Lady of Talin or monocons with a cross-shaped floor plan, such as Lmbatavank or the Kamrawor church of Ashtarak . The church of Mastara represents a further development in which the dome diameter has been significantly increased. Due to its clear shape and its chronological order, which some researchers have brought forward to the middle of the 6th century, it stands for a group of central buildings known as the “mastara type”.
In the Mastara type, the conches protrude centrally over the rectangular floor plan and the eastern conche is surrounded by side rooms, which is why it is referred to as a partially encased building. This model, the Sergiuskirche in Artik , Mother of God Church in Woskepar (province of Tavush ) that Gregory church of the monastery Harichavank Monastery (all 7th century), the monastery church of Soradir (near the Lake Van ) and the Cathedral of Kars (10th century) added.
The "Awan-Hripsime type" represents a further enlargement and structural improvement. Here, as with the two namesake, the cathedral of Awan (district of Yerevan) and the Hripsime church of Echmiadzin, the floor plan was made up of side rooms in all four Corners expanded to form a square structure on the outside. These much more complex forms cannot, however, be placed in a general line of development based on the Mastara type, as Josef Strzygowski needed in 1918 for his architectural evolution theory. In fact, the various forms must have formed side by side, because the Mastara church cannot be classified more precisely than the middle of the 7th century, while Awan is dated around 600 and Hripsime 618.
Design
The building is almost symmetrical and measures 11.2 × 12 meters inside. All four semicircular cones protruding beyond the square shape are surrounded by a pentagonal outer wall. Its width is about five meters inside. The east apse is only flanked in its lower area by rectangular side rooms, the flat sloping mono-pitch roofs of which reach half the height of the outer walls. The octagonal drum is structured at the corners of the wall by niches cut at right angles. They are located above the trumpets and contribute to weight reduction at this point. The dome is covered by a pyramid roof.
The two portals in the west and south cones are surrounded by wide blind arches over four-part columns with cube-shaped capitals . A similar portal design, but with double columns, was widespread in the 7th century. An arched window is located in each straight wall of the main building and in the wall surfaces of the drum. In addition to the usual horseshoe-shaped ornamental friezes above the windows, the west window is emphasized by an unusual ornament. Another arch spans over the window arch, framing a field with an inscription and a cross relief. The window arches are decorated with a wealth of shapes: among other things, horseshoe-shaped friezes, plaited ribbons , vines and fluting . Cornice with horseshoe-shaped arches form the eaves edge on the main building and on the tambour.
Inside, at the transition from the walls to the tambour, hemispheres alternate above the eight cones with eight large trumpets in the corners. Immediately above this are eight smaller trumpets, which lead to the 16 inner wall panels of the drum, every second of which is illuminated by an arched window. Above the row of windows, 16 even smaller vault gussets create a 32-sided transition zone to the base circle of the dome. Twelve narrow ribs radiate across the dome and are among the few ornamental structures. The side rooms are accessible through doors from the nave. The glorification of the cross can be seen on the lintels of the entrances to the adjoining rooms, presumably from an older building. The scene remained incomplete and only shows an angel in front of the cross. The northern side room is equipped with a semicircular apse, the sacristy in the south with a straight east wall serves as a clothes closet and for storing ritual objects.
Most of the walls are plastered. Remnants of paintings are no longer or never existed. The church is set up for worship. It looks light and spacious. A wooden gallery above the western third of the room is accessible through wooden stairs on both sides.
Inscriptions
The name of the client Grigoras Siwni is mentioned in seven inscriptions. It is not known who he was. Most important for dating is the inscription on a stone above the arched frieze of the south window. Their translation reads: "In the time of Lord Theodoros, Bishop of Gnunikh, the divine house was built to redeem the unworthy Grigoras."
Bishop Theodoros Gnuni (Gnunikh) is known to have attended the council in Dwin in 645 . From this, Strzygowski and almost all subsequent researchers deduce the dating of the church to the middle of the 7th century. However, none of the inscriptions are dedicated to the original building. Building inscriptions that have been preserved and added later usually repeat literally earlier inscriptions or, in a general sense, reflect earlier events. Building inscriptions were important as preservers of the longest possible tradition of a building for the self-identification of the community and, if a new building was necessary, they were taken over as spoils . Copies were generally only made when the church building and its inscriptions were destroyed. Ulrich Bock therefore expresses doubts about the age determination and suggests an origin in the time of the replacement inscriptions from the 9th century.
One inscription mentions the restoration of the church in 891 by Sargis, a son of the priest Artawasd, other inscriptions come from the years 1010 and 1015. In the two inscriptions in the arched area above the west window it says: “Through God's help to the monk Grigoras, the A place of refuge was built. "And:" This cathedral is wreathed by a bride with the cross as a crown, she has Christ as bridegroom, the apostles, prophets and martyrs as guests of the bride, she protects us for centuries and redeems Grigoras. "
Sons and Daughters of Mastara
- Howhannes Barseghjan (1920-2014), linguist
literature
- 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. 224f
- Patrick Donabédian: Documentation of the art places . In: Jean-Michel Thierry: Armenian Art. Herder, Freiburg / B. 1988, pp. 585f, ISBN 3-451-21141-6
- Josef Strzygowski : The architecture of the Armenians and Europe. Volume 1. Kunstverlag Anton Schroll, Vienna 1918, pp. 74–76 ( online at Internet Archive )
Web links
- Rick Ney: Aragatsotn March . Tour Armenia, 2008, p. 89f
- Mastara. Armenian Studies Program
- St John in Mastara. armenica.org
- Mastara Church. Armeniapedia
Individual evidence
- ^ Adam Thomas Smith: Imperial Archipelago: The Making of the Urartian Landscape in Southern Transcaucasia . (Dissertation) University of Arizona, 1996, pp. 198, 211
- ^ RA 2001 Population and Housing Census Results . armstat.am, p. 55
- ^ RA Aragatsotn March. armstat.am, 2012, p. 245
- ↑ W. Eugene smallholder: Zvart'nots and the Origins of Christian Architecture in Armenia . In: The Art Bulletin , Vol. 54, No. 3. College Art Association, September 1972, pp. 245-262
- ↑ Jean-Michel Thierry, p. 69
- ↑ Stepan Mnazakanjan: Architecture . In: Burchard Brentjes u. a., pp. 62-65
- ↑ Christina Maranci: Medieval Armenian Architecture. Construction of Race and Nation. (Hebrew University Armenian Studies 2) Peeters, Leuven u. a. 2001, p. 97
- ^ Francesco Gandolfo: Armenia and Georgia . In: Beat Brenk: Late antiquity and early Christianity. (Propylaea art history) Ullstein, Frankfurt / M. u. a. 1985, p. 211
- ↑ Hilde Romanazzi: Domed medieval churches in Armenia: form and construction. Instituto Juan de Herrera, Madrid 2009, p. 1205
- ^ Patrick Donabédian: Documentation of the art places . In: Jean-Michel Thierry, p. 564
- ↑ Josef Strzygowski, p. 44
- ^ 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, pp. 149–151
- ↑ Josef Strzygowski, p. 45