Saghmosawank
Saghmosavank ( Armenian Սաղմոսավանք ), also Saghmosavank, Sałmosavank ', "Psalms Monastery ", is a former monastery of the Armenian Apostolic Church in the northern Armenian province of Aragazotn north of Yerevan . The main church was built at the beginning of the 13th century together with the neighboring monasteries Howhannawank and Tegher on behalf of the ruling princely family Vachutian. Today's village in the vicinity of the preserved church buildings bears the name Saghmosavan, derived from the monastery .
location
Coordinates: 40 ° 22 ′ 49.9 ″ N , 44 ° 23 ′ 48 ″ E
Saghmosavank located at an altitude of 1,610 meters on a plateau in the southeast of the 4,090-meter high volcano Mount Aragats on the western edge of the deeply cut canyon of Kasagh River , the north dammed from the twelve kilometers Aparan Lake southward flows and finally the Mezamor in the Aras opens . On the east side of the gorge rises the wide, rugged Ara ( Ara lehr ) with a height of 2575 meters, which is also of volcanic origin and on the northern slope of which remains of oak and maple forests survive. The plain, which was still wooded in the Middle Ages, is now mostly overgrown with grass and is used as pastureland. Around Saghmosawank, apples thrive in extensive plantations.
The M3 expressway bypasses the villages north of Ashtarak on their west side and first leads along the Kassagh Gorge to Aparan and to Spitak in the north of the country. At the same time, a local thoroughfare connects Ashtarak with the suburb of Mughni, two kilometers away, and continues through Karbi, Ohanavan - five kilometers from Mughni, with the Howhannawank monastery - and after another five kilometers through Artaschawan, where a short road branches off to the monastery churches of Saghmosawan, which are located in the rear area of the agricultural settlement directly on the edge of the gorge.
In the 2001 census, the official population of Saghmosawan was 198. In the official statistics for January 2012 there are 220 inhabitants.
history
In the second half of the 9th century, after the end of Arab rule under the autonomously ruling royal house of the Bagratids, the second phase of Armenian architecture began. From the 10th century regional princes founded monasteries in their sphere of influence. It is unknown whether a monastery existed before the main church was built in 1215 and completed in 1221. Around 1215, Prince Vacheh of the Armenian Vachutian dynasty bought the region and took over the Amberd fortress on the slope of the Aragaz and the fortress of Kosch below . Vacheh Vachutian and his wife Mama Khatun are known as the founders of Saghmosavank, Hovhannavank (main church 1216–1221) and Tegher. The prince and his wife were buried in the Gawit of the Tegher Monastery, built between 1213 and 1232. The Gawit, built in front of the church of Saghmosawank in the west, was built shortly after 1215. In 1255 the son and successor of the royal couple, K'urd, commissioned the building of a library.
The monastery was affected by a series of incursions by the Turkic - Mongolian peoples in the 13th and 14th centuries. At the end of the 14th century the region fell to the Central Asian conqueror Timur Lenk and the monastery was abandoned. Wars between the great powers, the Ottomans and the Persian Safavids in the following two centuries led to destruction and famine throughout Armenia. Only in the 17th century did the political and economic situation stabilize under Persian rule, so that monasteries could be rebuilt or restored.
In 1679 and 1827 earthquakes caused severe damage, the monastery was restored in the 17th century under Bishop Yovhannes and in 1890 under Catholicos Khrimean Hayrik (1820–1907). After damage from the severe earthquake in 1988 , the buildings were restored by the year 2000.
Monastery complex
The first monasteries of the 10th century consisted of a relatively small cross- domed church with rectangular enclosing outer walls in the center, occasionally domed halls (as in Marmaschen in the 11th century) took their place. The sacred buildings were located within an enclosure wall along which monks' quarters and ancillary rooms were lined up. From the middle of the 11th century, the main churches were expanded with other sacred rooms - front-built gawites and chapels attached to the sides - to form a complex building ensemble.
Sionskirche
The ensemble preserved in Saghmosavank consists of the Sionskirche ( Surb Sion ), a far larger Gawit in the west, a library adjoining the south wall of the Gawit and the church, in front of the east side of which a chapel was added as the fourth building in the middle of the 13th century . The Sionskirche belongs to the type of rectangular encased cross-domed churches with monoconchos, the semicircular raised altar apse in the east facing a rectangular church space in the west. There are also two narrow aisles to the north and south, one of which leads to the two-storey side rooms on the side of the altar apse. These and the western side rooms, which are accessible from the western arm, have small round apses. Narrow stone stairs that protrude from the walls lead to the upper side rooms.
The encased cross-domed churches are an extension of the small churches that have been preserved since the 7th century, whose cruciform basic plan can be seen on the outside , as in Lmbatavank or the Kamrawor church of Ashtarak (both 7th century). An intermediate stage designated as partially encased only has side rooms on the east side (Stephanuskirche von Kosch and Pemzaschen ). The central crossing is formed by the inner wall corners, which are connected to one another by belt arches . Above this rises the outside and inside circular tambour , whose conical roof crowning the dome dominates the entire complex. The outer walls in the east and west are divided by two vertical triangular niches, otherwise the building is practically unadorned. The building type corresponds essentially to the main church of Hovhannawank.
Gawit
This also applies to the square Gawit , which measures 13 × 13.5 meters on the outside and corresponds to the most common type A 1, whose central ceiling square rests on four massive free-standing columns. Round arches on all sides connect the pillars with pilasters on the outer walls. The Gawit is lower but wider than the Sionskirche. Compared to the different groin and barrel vaults of the outer ceiling fields, the middle field is highlighted by a twelve- sided pyramid dome , the middle opening ( jerdik ) of which is surmounted by a lantern . In the room, which is only weakly lit by the opening in the ceiling and window slits in the north and south walls, the quatrefoil ornaments on eleven of the twelve pyramid surfaces and the cross relief on one ceiling surface are barely recognizable.
The most outstanding design element on the outside of the Gawit is the west portal, which is surrounded by a triple frame. A keel-arch-shaped round profile is located within a far raised rectangular enclosure , which encloses a field formed from diamond-shaped surfaces above the inner arch. The round arch, composed of two thick bulges, surrounds a tympanum field , the design of which is reminiscent of a marquetry and consists of protruding pentagonal stars. The current state of the portal comes from the restoration carried out in 1890.
Library and chapel
The library ( matenadaran ) with its L-shaped floor plan fits into the south walls of the main building. The building inscription, dated 1255, begins with “I, K'urd, and my wife Xorišah [Khorishah] built this library and had a chapel built in the name of our daughter ...” The attached chapel, dedicated to Our Lady ( Surb Astvatsatsin ), refers to a second inscription on the occasion of the restoration of 1669.
The structure of the building is unusual and complex, its ceiling construction roughly corresponds to the rib arch ceiling of a type B1 gawit. Two arches span the room lengthways and divide it into two narrow aisles and a wider central nave, which ends in a round apse in the east. In addition, there are two transverse arches shifted from the center to the west, which form the basic square for a pyramid dome, the ceiling opening of which is surmounted by an octagonal lantern with a pyramid roof. The two side ceiling panels are painted with herringbone patterns, stars and octagons in red and white colors. Another ceiling field is decorated with a three-dimensional protruding star. On the inner walls there are geometric patterns of triangles and octagons, the vaulted ceiling above the apse is filled with a circle of rays. A special feature is a two-storey side room bordering the apse in the south-east corner. From the part of the room that extends north to the church wall, a door leads to the south-east corner of the Gawit and opposite a second door to the chapel, which consists of a roughly square room with an east round apse consists.
Access to the library is from the west through a door that is emphasized by a porch with a gable roof. On the west gable there is a window under a cross in high relief, the outline of which forms another cross. Several relief crosses engraved flat in the wall are memories of their donors. The library not only served to store the manuscripts, but was also the monastery treasury.
Remnants of the foundations of the former outbuildings are still in the vicinity. The monastery was once surrounded by a wall made of mighty stone blocks that came from a nearby Iron Age fortress. Some hachkars from the 14th and 15th centuries are set up north of the buildings. A large khachkar from 1309 stands in the northeast corner of the church, another not far from this bears the date 1421. A black stone is used for animal sacrifices ( matagh ) to make supplications come true.
literature
- Patrick Donabédian: Documentation of the art places . In: Jean-Michel Thierry: Armenian Art. Herder, Freiburg / B. 1988, pp. 573f, ISBN 3-451-21141-6
Web links
- Rick Ney: Aragatsotn March . Tour Armenia, 2008, pp. 42-44
- Saghmosavank Monastery. Armeniapedia
Individual evidence
- ^ RA 2001 Population and Housing Census Results . armstat.am, p. 57
- ^ RA Aragatsotn March. armstat.am, 2012, p. 246
- ↑ Stepan Mnazakanjan: Architecture. In: Burchard Brentjes , Stepan Mnazakanjan, Nona Stepanjan: Art of the Middle Ages in Armenia. Union Verlag (VOB), Berlin 1981, pp. 78, 89
- ^ Patrick Donabédian: Documentation of the art places . In: Jean-Michel Thierry, p. 574
- ↑ Jean-Michel Thierry, p. 210
- ↑ Rick Ney: Aragatsotn Marz , p. 44