Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 270, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 November 1916 — ON THE SHORES of LAKE VAN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ON THE SHORES of LAKE VAN

WHEN news came a year or more ago that the Russians, having captured the South Armenian city of Mush, had pushed on rapidly and won a victory at Akhlat en the shore of Lake Van, there were probably not half a dozen people in the British islands who received a thrill at sight of that last name. But those half-dozen, if there were so many, had instantly summoned up to their mind’s eye one of the most perfect little buildings in the world, In its way, which was standing recent; ly—let us hope is still standing—by the waters of the romantic lake, writes Sir Martin Conway, in Country Life. Van and Titicaca are perhaps the two most romantic lakes in the world. They lie far remote from the ways of most people, even of most travelers, both on high plateaus near great mountains; both the sites of great ancient civilizations ; both destined to be the scene of no little future prosperity; and both, in these days, rather sorrowful and fallen. One is the jewel of the Armenian highlands. The other lies far away between the two great ranges of the Cordillera of the Andes.

Always a Fortress. The Importance of ancient Van is proved by the triumphant cuneiform Inscriptions left upon its rocks by proud Assyrian conquerors. The rock of Van has been a fortress since ever fortresses were. It has passed down the ages from conqueror to conqueror, yet when the Russians captured it its lapse from Ottoman control passed almost unnoticed. It was none the less a considerable event. When the fortress of Van changes hands the clock of history strikes the passing of an age.

It is not, however, of Van that we must here treat, nor even of Akhthamar, the island close to the south shore of the lake, which has been for centuries a kind of Holy Island to the Armenians cherishing its old church, still fairly well preserved and in use before this war burst upon even that most secluded retreat Akhlat alone will suffice us today, and that not for its Christian, but its Mussulman associations. There was, Indeed, an old Christian city there, situated in a ravine some distance from the shore. The Mussulman conquerors set up their fortress not there, though the site was naturally strong, but on the shore between two small ravines. The city they built was the capital of a small state in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but history is very silent about it at the time when its existing monuments were raised. We know the names of the builders, but nothing whatever about, them beyond what they tell us themselves.

Tombs Are Called Kumbets. Half a mile inland from the port on slightly rising ground was the site chosen for the mausolea of the princes of Akhlat. It was the pleasing fashion of the Moslems to erect their tombs amid gardens and to take their pleasure beside the remains of their beloved. Hence, for instance, the beautiful garden round the Taj at Agra. I have heard Mrs. Grundys of sorts criticizing visitors for making merry in that garden, but that was exactly what it was made for. . There are no gardens left at Akhlat, only a fertile patch in the midst of a dry and dusty region, where gardens once were. Some of the mausolea still stand, and one of them is a thing of~great beauty. A tomb of this kind is called a kumbet. It is a polygonaj or circular building of stone, standing on a solid base and surmounted by a pointed stone roof like an extinguisher. Evidently enough the type was borrowed from the earlier Christian tomb-churches of the tenth and perhaps preceding centuries, whereof ruined examples may be seen at Ani and elsewhere. There are, or were, three kumbets at Eirzerum near or attached to the ChiAeh Minareh. The older kumbet at Erzerum is still like a dome crowning part of a church, though the building has shrunk together beneath it and is represented only by a ring of pedimented facades.

In the next stage these facades further shrink into a mere arcading, and then the kumbet type is complete. Internally these buildings contain two chambers one above another. The lower is the tomb-chamber; the upper is accessible by one or four doors, which it required a ladder to reach. Aboqt a mile away, and nearer the shore, a far more beautiful kumbet exists, the finest example of Armenian art as modified by Mussulman builders. Once there were two near together here, also, but one of them collapsed • about twenty years ago. ‘ “Tradition,” says Lynch, “relates that these companion tombs are the burial places of two brothers, and the work of a single architect. For the elder brother was designed the structure which has now fallen, and is said to have been greatly inferior to that which stands. This individual lived to see the more finished monument erected, and to brood over the invidious contrast between his own and his brother’s tomb. His anger was visited upon the daring architect, who was condemned to lose his right hand.” The fallen tomb was made for “the great and noble emir, Shadi Agha,” who died in 1273. The standing Kumbet is nameless. It is not large; each side of its base measures only 30 feet None of the great monuments of the world are large. Great size usually connotes poverty of design in monumental architecture or sculpture. But this nameless tomb by the shores of Van is of very perfect quality—admirable in proportions, fine in finish, and its restricted ornament very beautiful and very elaborate.

One wonders how such buildings come to fall. They are formed solidly of stone and the masonry seems of good quality. The domed area Inside is small and the walls thick enough to carry the weight and bear the thrust, one would suppose, forever. Probably the mortar is poor, and then there are earthquakes which shiver them from time to time. All my photographs of kumbets show suggestive cracks, and those taken of the same building after a few years’ Interval indicate that the cracks are widening and. multiplying. Built of Pink Stone. The Akhlat monuments owe something to the pink volcanic stone of which they are built Seen against a clear blue sky on a day of sunshine with the calm waters of the lake spreading away beyond them to far distant hills, their solitary stateliness commands the attention and retains it. A glance shows the perfection of the best of them. Like all fine Mussulman buildings it produces its full effect at a Gothic cathedral, to realize its excellence. You do not even need to walk round it. It is the same from every point of view—always satisfying, always complete, always faultless. One other kumbet deserves to be mentioned. It is situated close to the south shore of the lake, a day’s ride from the city of Van. The gardens of Vostan stretch up behind it over the lower slopes of the Ardos hills and not far away is that holy Island of Akhthamar mentioned before. The date of this also is recorded (1332), showing it to be half a century later than the Isolated tomb at Akhlat. It is obviously Imitated from that, with changes which are not improvements. The circle has gone back to a polygon. The characteristic Armenian niches are multiplied and set in small panels. The stalactites are hardened. Still it remains “a charming monument, of highly finished masonry, fresh and clean as on the day when it was completed.’’ The interior of the upper chamber here also is perfectly plain. Halimeh, daughter of Sheikh Ibrahim, 1 once a ruler in these parts, was here laid to her rest. We know nothing whatever about her or her father, but as long as this building, or a photograph of it, survives, he will not be without honor among those who love the beautiful things that the hands of men have fashioned, whether for honor or for joy.

A KUMBET OF CHIFTEH MINAEXH’