11 Tigranakert in Artsakh

Abstract

This Chapter deals with the results of archaeological excavations from ancient and medieval times on the historical territory of Karabakh and Utik and the adjacent territory, based on the excavations of Tigranakert and its surroundings, Amaras and Vachar in Artsakh. In the first section, the late Hellenistic image of the city is presented: the fortification system, the two city districts, the Hellenistic burial ground. A comparative examination of the fortification system confirms that it originates from the system erased in Alexandria in the 3rd century BCE, which with some changes was applied in Artashat and received its classical form in Tigranakert of Artsakh. The second section discusses the Early Christian square with two churches, remains of a monumental stela with a cross, as well as an Early Christian underground reliquary and a graveyard. The sepulchre-reliquary has only an eastern entrance. As further excavations revealed, the sepulchre-reliquary of St Grigoris in Amaras and the reliquary of St Stephen in Vachar also have only an eastern entrance. All these three structures date from the 5th-6th centuries. In the Early Christian East, the only tomb that had only an eastern entrance is the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The analysis of data on Vachagan the Pious (end of 5th-early 6th centuries), king of Albania (which included since the middle of 5th century the eastern provinces of Greater Armenia, Artsakh and Utik), allows to conclude that at the end of the 5th century the king initiated an ecclesiastical reform, trying to link the origin of the Albanian Church to Jerusalem. A new approach to the structures of the Early Christian sanctuaries in and near Tigranakert thus allows us to compare this sacred area with the sacred Early Christian topography of Jerusalem.