Note 23 — Chapter XVI · EDGMIATSIN AND THE ARMENIAN CHURCH

The central dome, which is supported on piers in the interior, consists of a polygonal drum with a window in each face surmounted by a conical roof. A false arcade with slender columns and pointed arches enriches, together with a carved cornice, the simplicity of the design. This dome is believed to date from the seventh century, and to be the work which the Katholikos Komitas (617–625) erected in place of an earlier structure in wood. If this be the case we have an example of this form of dome in Armenia a hundred years before the time when it is supposed by Fergusson to have been developed.23 It is a pity that some vandal has daubed it over with plaster and paint, which invests it with a grotesque appearance. Above each window is a medallion containing the head of a saint, and I saw traces of spiral carving on the columns. An almost flat-roofed building with this dome in the centre, with four projecting apses, one at each point of the compass and each surmounted by a little belfry—such would appear to have been the original exterior of the edifice which we see at the present day.