Note 12 — Chapter XVI · AKHLAT

The overthrow of that empire by the Mongols afforded a passage to these savage hordes towards the south. They became masters of the city in 1245. We are informed that they made it over to a Georgian princess, who had married a son of one of the Shahs of Armenia.12 To this period are due the mausolea which we still admire, and some of which appear to have been erected to princes of Mongol origin. My authorities throw no light upon the point. I am not aware that Nughatay, or Hasan Agha, or the son of Saughur are known to history. They preserve equal silence upon the period which produced the tomb of Bayindar, master of the sword and of the pen. But we can scarcely doubt that he was a chieftain of the Turkoman horde of the White Sheep into whose possession the greater part of the country had passed during the progress of the fifteenth century.13 Akhlat was incorporated in the Ottoman dominions under Sultan Suleyman the First in A.D. 1533–1534.14