HISTORICAL BUILDINGS

1319

State index: 1.6.68

Architect: Shahik

The mausoleum, more precisely, its preserved underground part, is located at Abovyan Street 3, in the basement having 9m depth. It is carved in bright red tuff rock.

It was constructed in 1319 for a high-ranking official of the Mongolian rule period and his relatives. The architect is an Armenian master Shahik, the builder of Saint Astvatsatsin three-storey church (1301) in Yeghvard. At the top of the entrance to the underground part of the mausoleum, the date of construction and the name of the architect can be read in a bilingual inscription (in Armenian and Persian).

The mausoleum was consisted of underground and overground parts. The underground part was accidently opened during the construction works at the end of the 1990s, and was studied in 2001. (Archaeologist: Husik Melkonyan, architect: Artak Ghulyan). Remains of a human skeleton, luxurious tiles, bricks, glazed and simple crockery, porcelain, oil candles, parts of an entrance iron lock, as well as fragments of an overground structure (anchor, capital of the column, decorative façade stone, sculptured fragments, dropstone remains) and others were found. The mausoleum is an isosceles cross in plan, covered with dropstone arches that rest on vaults covered with non-repeating ornaments. Glazed, multi-colored tiles were used in the interior decoration. The entrance is from the north, and is connected with the grave chamber through a narrow corridor and stone steps. The ground structure stood until the 1670s of the 17th century.

A French traveler Jean Chardin, who visited Yerevan in 1673, gave his description about a tomb calling it a tower. It was probably destroyed in 1679 because of the Great earthquake, as later travelers who visited Yerevan did not provide any information about it. The mausoleum is a valuable monument of medieval stone-hollowed architecture and sculpture. It has an important significance in terms of studying Armenian-Mongolian and Armenian-Persian historical and cultural relations.

“Scientific Research Centre of Historical and Cultural Heritage” SNCO

Yerevan Municipality