Note 12 — Chapter V · FROM VAN TO BITLIS

I have said that a narthex of later origin adjoins the building upon the west; it was from that side that we entered the interior. The façade of this narthex is as bald and plain as its inner walls and the rude flagstones of the floor. The ceiling is low; in the centre a shallow vaulting rests upon four arches and piers. It has a length of 32 feet 11 inches, and a breadth, from north to south, of 36 feet 5 inches. It does not contain an altar, and the only object which you remark within it is a large block of stone. Our companions informed me that it is placed over the grave of one Abdul Miseh, a king, as they supposed, of the Artsruni dynasty. If this block be the same as that upon which Layard saw some cuneiform characters, their Abdul Miseh may be a corruption of the name of the great king Menuas, revealed by the researches of Western scholars.12