Note 13 — Chapter IX · ERZERUM

Not many ancient buildings remain in the city, which has not seldom been visited by severe earthquakes. One of the most violent occurred in the month of June 1859, destroying or seriously damaging 4500 houses, overturning several portions of the old walls and levelling nine minarets with the ground.13 The most pretentious edifice is the old medresseh or college, called Chifteh Minareh.Chifteh Minareh or the double minaret (Fig. 166). My illustration is from a photograph taken many years ago, before the caps of both minarets had fallen away. I was unable to obtain permission to enter the edifice, which was being used as a military store. It has been described at some length by more than one of my predecessors, and it is, I believe, an architectural solecism.14 The façade of hewn stone with elaborate traceries contrasts with the brickwork of the pair of circular towers which rise from stone piers on either side. The circumference of each tower is diversified by eighteen small shafts, morticed into the main mass. The space between each pair of shafts is filled by a triangular moulding, of which the edge or narrow side faces outwards. Shafts and moulding are built of reddish kiln-burnt bricks, inlaid with small blue bricks. At the base of either pier is a large panel, framing an elaborate ornament in sculptured stone. Between the uppermost sprays of a bunch of foliage or feathers rests the device of a double-headed eagle. The stalks or quills of the garland rest in the hollow of a small semicircle, which is supported by the interlaced forms of two dragons. The question is suggested whether this double-headed eagle be the well-known emblem of the Roman empire over East and West. But we know that the emblem was adopted by the Seljuk dynasty of the Ortukids and by their successors the Ayubids;15 and, indeed, if one were left to one’s own judgment, one might well suppose that this was a monument of the Seljuk period. On the other hand, a Cufic inscription, communicated to Professor Koch in the forties by the dragoman of the British Consulate, is to the effect that this building and an adjacent mosque were founded by a nameless benefactor during the caliphate of Malek Khan and in the year of the Hegira 351 (A.D. 962). The inscription is described as consisting of two portions, one on either tower.16 Personally I could not discover any trace of Cufic writing, nor, so far as I am aware, has such been observed upon this monument by any of my predecessors. Adjoining the building on the south side is a circular tomb in hewn stone, resembling the mausolea at Akhlat, which are works of the thirteenth century. Tradition ascribes the tomb to a Sultan of Persia.17