Week 11: The writings on the Stone

Before hieroglyphic writing was developed, between 900 and 700 BCE, people of the Armenian region expressed themselves by carving and painting on the rocks, which are known as petroglyphs or pictograms. The most fascinating aspect of petroglyphs is perhaps the fact that these represented ideas through pictures, as opposed to an alphabet, which captures sounds and is used to create words and sentences to express ideas.

Petroglyphs from Sevan region

The petroglyphs are commonly carved out on dark-shiny and sunburned surfaces of andesite-basalt rocks by stone-cutters, substituted later on by metal. The rocks are extremely hard, their colour, which was originally of a lighter shade, darkened by oxidation through the ages and also by a thin, shiny film called Wüstenlak, which forms on the rocks.

 

Petroglyphs from Gegham Ridge

Around 20000 carved rock pieces have been discovered in Armenia, of which 12000 are located in the vicinity of the Geghama and Vardenis Mountain Ranges (2500-3200 m above sea level) and more than 6000 in the Syunik Mountains (3000-3400 m) in the south. Another 2000 have been found on the slopes of Aragats (1100-3000 m), the highest peak in Armenia (4094 m) and on the slopes of Navasar, near the second peak of Kaputjugh (3904 m). There are also hundreds of rock-carvings in the Qarvachar Region of Artsakh.
A great number of rock-carvings has been found in Western Armenian provinces in modern Turkey and in the Kobustan area of Azerbaijan. All of the carvings located in Azerbaijan and eastern Turkey are similar in subject, style and technique to those in Current Armenia.

 

Petroglyph illustrations

 Above are the illustrations from pictographs which were executed between the 8th and 4th millennia BCE, (9000 to 3000 BCE). According to archaeologists the drawings are associated with Neolithic cultures, especially in the higher mountain regions (Aragats and Aghmaghan and the basin of Lake Sevan).

The Indo-European group of languages is one of the most widely spoken family of languages in the world. Around 3000 B.C.E., the Proto-Indo-European family of languages was probably closely unified, but by 2000 B.C.E., Greek and two extinct languages, Hittite and Sanskrit, were distinct languages. Though changes in grammar and meaning have taken place, analysis of vocabulary indicates that the people of the ancient Indo-European culture were metal-using farmers tending domestic animals. Recent discoveries suggest links to the Kurgan people, who lived on the steppes west of the Ural Mountains. In the Kingdom of Van, 810 BCE, inscriptions of economic and sacrificial nature were written in hieroglyphics. Specimens of Armenian hieroglyphics are also evident in Urartian excavations at Karmir-Blur, where pottery, bronze cups and cylinder seals were found. This type of writing was used by people living on the Ararat Plain, even before the penetration of the Urartian tribes, according to excavations at Cholagerd.
 

Urartian hieroglyphs

Beyond stone carvings, there is very little to suggest what a native language was like in Armenia between the Paleolithic and Urartian periods. Detailed maps showing ancient fortified towns and roads that exist to this day are scrawled on the sides of stone foundations, as are complex trigonometry and geometric formulas pointing to astral, solar and lunar phases.     It is not until the Urartian period (ca. 1300-550 BC) that a written language has been found and that was borrowed from Sumerians and Assyrians. As mentioned, stone was the preferred medium of expression, however there is some evidence that wood and leather parchment were used along with clay tablets in Mesopotamia and Egypt. But other than signs of zodiac, maps and geometric equations, no signs of writing from the Metsamor period have been uncovered. 

The metamorphoses of the alphabet

The current Armenian alphabet, which originally contained 36 letters, was introduced by Saint Mesrop Mashtots, an Armenian linguist and ecclesiastical leader  at 405 or 406 AD. Armenian literature with pre-Mashtotsian letters was burned during the introduction of Christianity. 

 Medieval Armenian sources also claim that Mashtots invented the Georgian and Caucasian Albanian alphabets around the same time. Traditionally, the following phrase translated from Solomon's Book of Proverbs is said to be the first sentence to be written down in Armenian by Mashtots:

Ճանաչել զիմաստութիւն եւ զխրատ, իմանալ զբանս հանճարոյ:
Čanačʿel zimastutʿiun yev zxrat, imanal zbans hančaroy.
To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding.

—Book of Proverbs, 1:2.

Armenian alphabet on a fresco in Wurzburg Palace by Tiepolo

On the image above is the nearly 7,300 square feet fresco, decorating the hallway of the Wurzburg Palace of Bavarian Bishops. Mythological creatures, ancient gods, nymphs, the inhabitants of exotic lands and many other figures fill the sky along with the distinctly rendered Armenian letters. Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770) a famous Venetian artist was the creator of this masterpiece.
In previous chapter we have looked into the significance of Khachkars and we discovered that Khachkar, along with other religious meaning, also played a role of a book, by taking in the newly discovered Armenian alphabet.

Manuscript Khachkar

Therefore Khachkar continued the tradition of petroglyphs and proved to survive through the centuries of terror and destruction that was followed by numerous attacks from Ottoman and Persian Empires.


Modern Khachkar shaped as Armenian letters

The famous English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement Lord Byron has conducted much study into the Armenian culture. He learned the Armenian language in Venice from the Mechitarist Order, wrote substantially about the Armenian language and history, contributing to its improvement and translated ancient Armenian text into English. Byron's brief Armenian episode and his association with the Armenian monks of the Mekhitarist Order on the island of San Lazzaro near Venice may be traced in an unusually large collection of books on Byron, constituting an important segment of John S. Mayfield's library of more than 50,000 rare books and manuscripts, housed in the Syracuse University Library. The Mayfield collection includes several rare volumes relating specifically to this experience.



Lord Byron's Armenian studies

As we have seen in week 2 on the case study of the Lord Byron School, the Armenian nation holds the writer in high regards and the school named after Byron is still operating in the earthquake damaged Spitak.
After the implementation of the new alphabet, many decoding systems started emerging with the use of the new letters that had various mathematic mechanics behind.

The above video looks into some of the Cryptograms used particularly on Khachkars. This and other coding methods I will be looking at in later chapters.

Week 10: The geometries of the Nature

Located around 30 km  on the East of the Yerevan, a curious volcanic basalt patterns can be found around the Garni Gorge. These natural formations comprise of columns of various sizes which are mostly hexagonal in shape, even though squares, pentagons, heptagons, octagons and other geometrical shapes are common too. These formations are known in Armenia as the "Symphony of Stones", which is yet another semantic similar to Karahunge - Whispering stones, that integrates the materiality of the rock with their intangible component of the sound and vibration. 

Basaltic Symphony of Stones in Geghard

Both Symphony of the Stones and the more famous Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland are estimated to be around 50 million years old. The Giant's Causeway offers a wide variety of shapes and structures and some were given different names depending on their shape or the morphology. Names such as the "Giant's Gate", "The Granny", "The Chimney" and most appropriately, the "Organ" or "Organ pipes" are among the most famous. As stated, in case of Garni Gorge, a well-accepted popular name is "Symphony of Stones". The columnar basalt of the Garni and the Giant’s causeway both are not the only such sites in the world. Columnar and polygon shaped exposed basalt formation can be found in other corners of the world, such as in the Yellowstone national park or the Parana river or elsewhere in Asia. In Garni, the cliff walls have been partially carved out by the Goght River. 

Goght River at Garni

The origins of these formations are of volcanic eruptions, but what differentiates these sites is the particular cooling and solidifying processes of the boiling lava, which gave these almost perfect geometric forms and hanging columns a distinct appearance. The rocks have multiple layers unveiling how the lava solidified, shrunk and formed these shapes over long periods of time. Volcanic basalt is not the hardest of rocks, which is ironic because "basalt" is ultimately derived from Late Latin basaltes, misspelling of L. basanites "very hard stone", hence millions of years have also resulted in erosion and weathering.

During the cooling of a thick lava flow, contractional joints or fractures form. If a flow cools relatively rapidly, significant contraction forces build up. While a flow can shrink in the vertical dimension without fracturing, it can't easily accommodate shrinking in the horizontal direction unless cracks form; the extensive fracture network that develops results in the formation of columns. The topology of the lateral shapes of these columns can broadly be classed as a random cellular network. These structures are predominantly hexagonal in cross-section, but polygons with three to twelve or more sides can be observed. The size of the columns depends loosely on the rate of cooling; very rapid cooling may result in very small (<1 cm diameter) columns, while slow cooling is more likely to produce large columns.

Volcanic lava flow

What I am most intrigued about is the potential correlation between the naturally formed stone patterns and the hand crafted stone carvings on the example of the Geghard monastery dome.

Garni natural formations and Geghard stone carvings

Basalt is a common extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of basaltic lava exposed at or very near the surface of a planet or moon. It almost always has a fine-grained mineral texture due to the molten rock cooling too quickly for large mineral crystals to grow, although it can sometimes be porphyritic, containing the larger crystals formed prior to the extrusion that brought the lava to the surface, embedded in a finer-grained matrix. The mineralogy of basalt is characterized by a preponderance of calcic plagioclase feldspar and pyroxene. Olivine can also be a significant constituent. Accessory minerals present in relatively minor amounts include iron oxides and iron-titanium oxides, such as magnetite, ulvospinel, and ilmenite. Because of the presence of such oxide minerals, basalt can acquire strong magnetic signatures as it cools, and paleomagnetic studies have made extensive use of basalt.

Let's have a closer look at the three main minerals of Basalt.

1- Feldspars (KAlSi3O8– NaAlSi3O8 – CaAl2Si2O8) are a group of rock-forming tectosilicate minerals which make up as much as 60% of the Earth's crust. Feldspars crystallize from magma in both intrusive and extrusive igneous rocks, as veins, and are also present in many types of metamorphic rock.

2- Pyroxenes are a group of important rock-forming inosilicate minerals found in many igneous and metamorphic rocks. They share a common structure consisting of single chains of silica tetrahedra and they crystallize in the monoclinic and orthorhombic systems. Pyroxenes have the general formula XY(Si,Al)2O6 (where X represents calcium, sodium, iron+2 and magnesium and more rarely zinc, manganese and lithium and Y represents ions of smaller size, such as chromium, aluminium, iron+3, magnesium, manganese, scandium, titanium, vanadium and even iron+2).

3- The mineral olivine (when of gem quality, it is also called peridot and chrysolite), is a magnesium iron silicate with the formula (Mg,Fe)2SiO4. It is a common mineral in the Earth's subsurface but weathers quickly on the surface.

Feldspar and Olivine crystal structures

On the above image of the mineral crystals the same geometric patterns of squares, pentagons, hexagons etc. can be observed, similar to the natural formations of the basalt.

The geologist N.L. Bowen found that minerals tend to form in specific sequences in igneous rocks, and these sequences could be assembled into a composite sequence. No igneous rock ever displays the whole sequence, but rather they display a slice across the sequence. Basalt, for example, typically has olivine and calcium plagioclase forming first, followed by pyroxene and more sodium-rich plagioclase. In granite, sodium plagioclase and biotite typically form first, followed by muscovite, potassium feldspar, and last of all quartz. The sketch below turns the series on its side. It's actually a more realistic view since successive minerals often form simultaneously.

Basalt formation sequence

Again the same geometric clusters are present during and after formation of these crystals. These particular geometric shapes are the most efficient forms to hold the structure in an equilibrium, without impairing the geological processes.

The predominant shape in case of the Garni Gorge are the hexagonal columns and it is fair to say that hexagonal patterns are prevalent in nature due to their efficiency. In a hexagonal grid each line is as short as it can possibly be if a large area is to be filled with the fewest number of hexagons. The hexagonal packing arrangement is the most efficient system for packing circles on a flat plane. Since each cell naturally tends towards the most efficient enclosure of its space, they tend towards circularity, but because each cell has any number of neighbouring cells pressing up against it, the result is a quasi-hexagonal tiling. Hence when the basaltic lava was initially cooling, it organized itself into roughly cylindrical convection cells. As the cells cooled into solid rock, they naturally took on the hexagonal geometry of packed circles.

Week 9: The village of the Red Heated Soil

When driving from Yerevan to Shikahogh village, one can observe the soil gradually turning from earth brown to red tinted.

The red soil of Shikahogh

The name Shikahogh (orange earth or red, heated soil) comes from the orangey, fiery red colour of soil in the area. Scientists say the ten thousand hectares of forest help to moderate hot winds blowing from desert plains in Iran to the south. The vegetation is also influenced by air from the Caspian Sea to the east. These climatic conditions have created a mix of flora and fauna unique to the region, they say. The oldest parts of the forests in Shikahogh are 1,000 years old. The growth is so thick in places it block out almost all sunlight, meaning that deep in the forest even the brightest days can seem dark here. Experts say the local ecosystem has been kept intact largely because of the region’s remoteness.

Shikahogh is also a home for one of Armenian's largest natural reserves, where many indigenous species reside, such as the Bezoarian Goat and the Armenian moufflon (a species of wild sheep), as well as between five and eight Asian Panthers - an endangered species of which there are only 20 in the greater Caucasus.

Shikahogh reserve bear monument

Bezoarian goat in Shikahogh reserve

For this reason, the first public announcements about building a highway connecting Iran with Armenia, were met with fierce objections from environmentalists and the community leaders. Initially the plan was to construct the road that would pass right through the reserve, making some of the land and the fauna obsolete.

After much debate, the Republic of Armenia government decided to redesign the highway, which now will be passing around the reserve in an alternative route, thus adding 7 km to the original 89 km projected length.

Needless to say that the Highway is of significant importance to the Armenian imports. Blockaded by Turkey and Azerbaijan as a result of the frozen conflict with the latter over the mainly Armenian-inhabited territory of Nagorno Karabagh, Armenia relies on its two other neighbours, Georgia and Iran for the bulk of its import and export. Approximately ten per cent of all imports into Armenia come from the Islamic Republic of Iran via mountainous terrain that often makes the journey dangerous during the winter.

Armenia - Iran highway

Some argue however, that the environmentalists impair the development of these villages, by imposing unnecessary restrictions. For example the already declining population of Kapan villages, including Shikahogh and Tzav (situated in the Shikahogh forest preserve), are prohibited to touch any of the trees in the reserve, including dry tree brunches or those trees which have fallen down as a result of natural causes. These trees could have been used to boost the modest constructions of the village, as well as provide people with fuel for harsh winters. One of the villagers admits “The trees have more value than us humans. This isn’t good. People won’t remain here. If they can take you to court for chopping down one tree then who would want to stay here? They’ll go to the towns. Many have already left.” The only jobs here are to be found in the small hydro-electric plant, where only around 15 villagers are currently employed. Many others have left to work in the Kapan or Kajaran mines. During the last two years, 20 families have already packed up and left Tzav.
Another example of uncompromising environmentalist attitudes is perhaps the opposition towards Tzav village gold mining explorations. Environmentalists are concerned that the mine will damage the Shikahogh preserve, despites the assurances from the German investment company that the explorations will be carried out using modern explosion technologies allowing for minimal pollution on the local environment and despites the mine being 15 kilometres away from the village and from the preserve. Most villagers of course voted for the proceeding of the project, as this will provide them with some job opportunities and means to enhance their poor standards of living.
I think this is a significant example of a progress being prevented by over caution and lack of knowledge perhaps. Since Shikahogh and surrounding towns and villages are in the heart of my case study location, it is therefore important to understand these inner dynamics and social - industrial correlations.
Lastly, the highway was built after much debate, however according to some media sources, it turned out to be less profitable and less usable due to its lengthiness and isolation, therefore the Armenian government came up with another plan to facilitate the transportation between not only Iran but this time with the neighbouring Georgia as well, by designing a massive railroad passing through all three countries.

Week 8: The evolution of Armenian domestic stone dwellings

Similar to religious buildings, the domestic constructions in Armenia also use the vastly available resources of stone and tuff stone in particular. There are various stylistic eras and more distinctly, we will look into the ancient and pre-communist residential constructions, the housing system during SSRA (soviet socialistic republic of Armenia) and the newly independent RA (Republic of Armenia) from 1991 onward.
Armenian architecture in general, as it originates in an earthquake-prone region, tends to be built with this hazard in mind. Armenian buildings tend to be rather low-slung and thick-walled in design. Because of the abundant resources of stone, and relatively few forests, stone was nearly always used throughout for small and large buildings.
Smaller and most residential buildings of earlier centuries were normally constructed of lighter materials, yet hardly any early examples survived. We will be looking at the example of the abandoned medieval capital of Ani 5th century AD.

Capital Ani, residential ruins

The stone used in buildings is typically quarried all at the same location, in order to give the structure a uniform colour. In cases where different colour stone are used, they are often intentionally contrasted in a striped or checkerboard pattern. Powder made out of ground stone of the same type was often applied along the joints of the tuff slabs to give buildings a seamless look. Unlike the Romans or Syrians who were building at the same time, Armenians never used wood or brick when building large structures.
In Ani, there are also number of man-made caves in all the canyons and valleys that surround the city. On the western side of Ani is the Tsaghkotsadzor canyon, also known as the Bostanlar Deresi and the Aladja (Alaca çay). On the north-western side of Ani is a branch valley of the Tsaghkotsadzor, the Igadzor valley. The Tsaghkotsadzor has other branch valleys that also have caves: the largest one on its western side is called the Bagnayridzor, and on its eastern side, north of the Igadzor, is the Anidzor, located below the village of Ani (Ocakli). On the eastern side of Ani is the deep canyon of the river Akhurian (Arpaçay), and on the north-eastern side of Ani is a branch valley, the Gayledzor (also known as the Mirmir or Tatarcık Deresi).



Rock cut chambers of Ani

The branch valleys are mostly dry on the surface except in times of heavy rain, but a small stream, known as the Ani River, meanders through the Tsaghkotsadzor canyon. The great majority of the caves are found in the Tsaghkotsadzor canyon. Kipshize divided the locations of the caves into 30 sections; 22 of them lay in the Tsaghkotsadzor and its tributaries.

 

Rock cut complex facade and plan

Many (probably the majority) of the caves were dwellings complete with associated storage areas. These chamber complexes are the least regular in their designs and layouts, and often have very free-flowing, curving interiors and multiple levels.

 

The inside of the chamber and the storage units

Most of the chambers were lit using windows. Some very large niches may have been sleeping areas. Smaller chambers, sometimes with storage pits dug in their floors, are often found grouped around a large central chamber. Occasionally, the smaller chambers have narrow tunnels that extend deep into the rock. In most cases these tunnels don't seem to lead anywhere and stop abruptly. Such tunnels may have been places of refuge (though it is notable that defensive millstone doorways, like those found in Cappadocia, do not appear to exist at Ani). A number of the chambers that are close to the surface have pyramidal ceilings with a skylight at the apex [see photograph 35], perhaps mirroring the wooden architecture found in traditional hazarashen-type houses. There are several such chambers in the Gayledzor valley.
There were also chambers intended for water storage, cellars for storage of wine and oil jars, stables, and a large chamber that has been identified as a caravanserai. A number of caves, especially those located close to Ani village, are still used for storage or for housing farm animals.

Mother Armenia Monument

Armenian architecture employs a form of concrete to produce sturdy buildings,. It is a mixture of lime mortar, broken tuff, and rocks around which forms a core against which thin slabs of tuff are arranged in brickwork fashion. As the wet mortar mixture dries it forms a strong concrete-like mass sealed together with the tuff around it and, due to tuff's properties, it becomes harder with time. Initially, almost no core was used in the construction of churches, stone blocks were simply sealed together, but as architects saw how those with mortar cores withstood tremors, the size of the core expanded. Frescos of marble or another stone were often affixed to the side of these buildings, usually at a later date. The most characteristic element of an Armenian structure is that most often it is composed almost entirely of stone, usually volcanic tuff or basalt.
This tradition was adopted and expanded during USSR regime as well affecting residential dwellings, governmental buildings, museums, institutions etc. Although religious practices in Soviet Armenia were largely oppressed for over 50 years, it is however undeniable that the communist era brought a massive uplift in industrial development of the country.


The hammer and sickle on Soviet Armenian emblem

From March 12, 1922 to December 5, 1936, Armenia was a part of the Transcaucasian SFSR (TSFSR) together with the Georgian SSR and the Azerbaijan SSR. Armenians enjoyed a period of relative stability under Soviet rule. Life under the Soviet Union  was a soothing balm in contrast to the turbulent final years of the Ottoman Empire. The Armenians received medicine, food, as well as other provisions from the central government and extensive literacy reforms were carried out.

Yerevan became the capital of the newly formed Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, one of the fifteen republics of the Soviet Union. Yerevan was the first city in the Soviet Union for which a general plan was developed. The "General Plan of Yerevan", approved in 1924, was developed by the academician Alexander Tamanyan. The plan was designed for a population of 150,000.

During the Soviet era the city was transformed into a modern industrial metropolis of over a million people, to become a significant scientific and cultural centre.
 

The plan of Yerevan

Tamanyan incorporated national traditions with contemporary urban construction. His design presented a radial-circular arrangement that overlaid the existing city and incorporated much of its existing street plan. As a result, many historic buildings were demolished, including churches, mosques, the Persian fortress, baths, bazaars and caravanserais. Many of the districts around central Yerevan were named after former Armenian communities that were destroyed by the Ottoman Turks during the Armenian Genocide. The districts of Arabkir, Malatia-Sebastia and Nork Marash, for example, were named after the towns Arabkir, Malatya, Sebastia, and Marash, respectively. After the end of World War II, German POWs were used to help in the construction of new buildings and structures, such as the Kievyan Bridge.

During this period, most 5, 9, 11 and 15 storey apartment blocs were built to accommodate the rising population of Yerevan and neighbouring districts.
 

Typical "Stalinian" bloc in Yerevan

 

A typical 5-storey bloc in Yerevan

With the USSR collapse, a large-scale privatization activities took place in the early nineties. As a result, Armenia has become a nation of homeowners with 96% of housing stock in private hands. Private ownership at market prices, however, is currently not affordable for a large share of the low to middle income group, because they can neither purchase a house themselves, nor have access to affordable mortgage finance.

There is a serious housing problem in Armenia due to several factors. Damage from the 1988 earthquake in the Northern Armenian city of Spitak left thousands of people homeless, and 5% still live in temporary shelter. As the city was destroyed, many people can be found using old school buildings, dangerous and damaged structures, and old train containers and carriages as their homes. Violence between Armenia and neighbouring country Azerbaijan has also led to the convergence of many refugees, many of which suffer without adequate housing.

A declining Soviet era residential building

Many families in Tavush, a war-affected region of Armenia, are in desperate need of assistance with regards to housing. Many of these families are female-headed, and there are many orphans and vulnerable people there.
These factors make finding housing incredibly difficult, especially when combined with mass housing privatisation; 96% of homes are now owned privately. The Armenian government own the further 4%, but these homes are not designed to benefit families with low incomes.
These problems have led to a clear shortage in decent, affordable homes for the poorest members of society. The lack of affordable, adequate and well-managed housing in Armenia has many negative social and economic impacts. These include labour market inflexibility and the resulting unemployment, social restrictions (young families cannot obtain housing), inadequate social and public services, inadequate services to the elderly and pensioners, deteriorating urban areas, and low energy efficiency in housing.

A crumbling Soviet era apartment Building