Note 91 — Chapter XVI · EDGMIATSIN AND THE ARMENIAN CHURCH

After a second perusal of the passages in Agathangelus and Faustus (in Langlois: Agathangelus, cxiv. and cxv.; Faustus, iii. and iv. 14), I do not hesitate to identify the site of the temples of Astishat—Mount Karke, in face of the great range, Taurus—with the immediate surroundings of the present cloister of Surb Karapet (see Vol. II. p. 177). The view which I shall offer from the terrace of that famous monastery (Fig. 157) will be the view which excited the cupidity of the eunuch Hair; the ash trees in the foreground may be the descendants of the hatzeatz-drakht or garden of ash trees; finally, the confluence of rivers, overgrown with thick forest, to which the eunuch descended and where he met his death, may be represented by the still wooded banks of the Murad in the valley of Charbahur. The identification of the scene of the events narrated in the text with the present monastery of Surb Karapet may be found in the geography attributed to Vardan in Saint Martin (Mémoires, etc., vol. ii. p. 431).

The baptism of Tiridates probably took place on the banks of the Upper Murad upon the site of another existing cloister of Surb Karapet, also called Uch Kilisa, near Diadin (see Smith and Dwight, Missionary Researches, p. 417). ↑