Politics, Ideology and Landscape: Early Christian Tigranakert in Artsakh

Abstract

Tigranakert in Artsakh was founded at the end of 90s BC by the Armenian King Tigranes II the Great (95–55 BC) and in the Early Christian period continued to play a role of an important military-administrative and religious center. As аresult of excavations the Early Christian square of the Central district with two churches, remains of a monumental stela witha cross, as well as an Early Christian underground reliquary and a graveyard were unearthed. The sepulchre-reliquary was opened under the floor of the small church of early Christian Square. It has only the eastern entrance. As had been shown by further excavations Saint Grigoris’s sepulchre-reliquary in Amaras also had an eastern entrance. Saint Stephanos’s reliquary in Vachar also has only an eastern entrance. All these three structures are dated from 5th–6th centuries. In early Christian East the only tomb that had an only eastern entrance is Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Analysis of the 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 us to conclude that at the end of the 5th century the king initiated theecclesiastical reform, trying to link the origin of the Albanian church to Jerusalem. One ofthe manifestations of this reform was the creation of the legend of the Apostle Yeghisha arriving to Albania from Jerusalem. Comparative analysis of archaeological, architectural and written data leads to the conclusion that all three tombs with the single east entrance are the result of the reformist activity of Vachagan, and the idea of single eastern entrance, most likely, was taken from the tomb of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. A new approach to the localizations of Early Christian sanctuaries in and near Tigranakert allows to compare this sacred area with early Christian sacred topography of Jerusalem.