Note 90 — Chapter XVIII · ANI, AND THE ARMENIAN KINGDOM OF THE MIDDLE AGES

Not far from St. Gregory, as you follow down the stream of the Arpa, are met remains of a walled enclosure of the usual finished masonry and in fair preservation. The walls descend the cliff-side to a projecting mass of rock which rises from the bed of the river with almost vertical sides. On the edge of this promontory, overlooking the stream, is placed a little chapel which, although ruinous, still retains many of the elements of its former beauty (No. 9, Fig. 79). It is distinguished from the walls about it by the pink stone of which it is built. The form of the roof is a pleasant variation from the prevailing type, as is also the plan of the interior. Six semicircular recesses are crowned by the circle of the dome. Contiguous to this elegant monument is a chamber or chapel of different form. At the upper end of the enclosure are seen the ruins of the long vaulted staircase which was taken across the enclosure and through the wall on the west, in order to debouch upon the ravine on the western side of the promontory, and so to lead down to the water’s edge. About 300 yards still further down the current you observe the piers of a bridge of which the single arch has fallen in. It was on the cliff-side above this bridge that the remains of a gateway were seen by my predecessors, bearing an inscription of the year 1320. It commemorates the allocation of a tax on cattle to the monastery of St. Gregory by one Sargis, chief of the Custom-House. The gift is made for the repose of the soul of the master of Sargis, Shahanshah, and for the long life of Zakarea and the other sons of Shahanshah. Fragments of inscriptions found within the neighbouring enclosure yield the dates of 705 and 759 Arm. era (A.D. 1256 and 1310).90 I am inclined to think it possible that the enclosure and chapel may have formed part of the same monastery of St. Gregory of which I have already described the church.