CHAPTER IV_Armenia, Travels and Studies (Volume 2 of 2) The Turkish Provinces

VAN

Of the various sites which one might select upon the shores of the

lake of Van, none would present as great advantages for a populous and

self-contained settlement as that of the city from which it derives its

name. The great range along the southern coast leaves little respite

of even land between the waves and the parapet of rock. The opposite

margin of the bosom of waters is filled with the fabrics of those huge

volcanoes, Nimrud and Sipan. Sipan, indeed, upon nearer acquaintance,

is robbed of some of his apparent extension; and the low outlines

on the west and east of the dome-shaped mass upon the horizon will

be recognised to belong to a belt of limestone with intrusive igneous

rocks which the traveller follows all the way from Akhlat to Adeljivas,

and upon which the volcano has built itself up. But those hills,

which from the neighbourhood of Van seem to constitute the train of

Sipan, are at once rugged and approach closely to the shore. Arjish

alone is backed by a zone of fairly even and fertile country; while,

as regards the coast between Van and the mouth of the Bendimahi Chai,

I do not know that it has ever harboured a considerable city. On the

other hand, the alluvial plain which is confined by Mount Varag upon

the east, and which may be said to extend from a headland near the

village of Kalajik on the north to the high ground just north of

Artemid upon the south, affords a considerable area of rich soil,

capable under irrigation of producing the choicest fruits of the earth.

Of the beauty of the site it would not be possible to speak too highly;

but I tremble to provoke in my English reader a nausea of descriptive

writing. The Armenians have a proverb which is often quoted: Van

in this world and paradise in the next. The comparison might be

justified under happier human circumstances, the perversity of man

having converted this heaven into a little hell. Its aptness may be

recognised during the course of a walk in the neighbourhood, or from

the standpoint of the rock which supports the citadel. In the north

across the waters is outspread an Italian landscape--a Vesuvius or

an Etna, with their sinuous surroundings, on an Asiatic scale. Nearer

at hand and fully exposed, the long barrier of the Kurdish mountains

recalls the wildest scenery of the Norwegian coast. From the city

herself as from the extremities of the wide basin, the short, sharp

ridge of Varag is seen with pleasure to the eye, lifted some 4500

feet above the waters, and, at evening, reflecting the sunset in the

most varied hues. The lake is not sufficiently large to separate

these various objects by distances which preclude under ordinary

conditions the simultaneous enjoyment of the beauty of all from a

single shore. And it is large enough to spread at their feet with

all the qualities of the ocean--the depth and vastness and changing

surface of the high seas.

I.--THE LAKE OF VAN

It is about six times as large as the lake of Geneva, having an area of

some 1300 square miles. Its western shore is erroneously laid down in

existing maps; and this necessitated a particular survey of that region

during my second journey, the result of which has been to invest the

lake with a shape of greater symmetry--a central body with two arms,

one on the north-east, the other on the south-west. The remainder

of the outline I have borrowed from the best available sources,

adapting them to the position of Van, of which the latitude and

longitude are approximately known, and correcting them as well as

possible by sketches, and readings to the principal points from the

summit of Sipan. If my reader will turn to the map which accompanies

this work he will, I think, be able to transfer, with the aid of a few

illustrations, the features which are there conventionally delineated

into a picture visible by the mind's eye.

How strange it seems that at the end of the nineteenth century one

should be engaged in exploring and mapping this fine country, one of

the fairest and most favoured of the Old World! How should we be able

to explain, still less to justify, the circumstance to some visitor

from another planet? It lies about in the centre of the land area of

our hemisphere; the climate is bracing, water is abundant, the sun

is warm. Yet it is so little known to the more civilised peoples

that their travellers journey thither with the aid of a compass

through districts which are now deserts, but which are well capable

of supporting the races that are highest in the human scale. The

case would appear to have been much the same during the period of

the expansion of Greek culture and of the later and beneficent sway

of Rome. The knowledge displayed of these regions by representative

writers like Strabo, Pliny and Ptolemy is, to say the best of it, vague

and fabulous. Yet Strabo, the contemporary of Augustus, was a native

of Asia Minor; the countrymen of Pliny had carried the Roman eagles to

the Araxes; and Ptolemy wrote during the reign of the Emperor Hadrian

whose statue, commemorating his journey through the interior, looked

out upon the waves above Trebizond. The first of these authorities

plainly confuses the position of Lake Urmi with that of Lake Van;

but he is well acquainted with the essential characteristics of both

sheets of water, different and strongly marked as these are. The

former is described as largest in area, and second in size to the

sea of Azof; its name is interpreted to signify the deep blue (kyanê

hermêneutheisa). The water is salt; and there are salt works in the

neighbourhood. [25] The peculiar properties which actually distinguish

the latter exactly tally with the language of Strabo, who, speaking

next of the lake Arsene or Thopitis, says that it is charged with

nitre, which word would seem with him to signify carbonate of soda,

[26] and that it washes clothes as though they had been scoured. He

adds that the water is undrinkable and supports only one kind of

fish. And he proceeds to relate a circumstance which is repeated and

embroidered by Pliny, and which is so curious that I cannot refrain

from extracting the whole passage from the work of the last-named

writer. [27]

"Meet also and convenient it is to say somewhat of the river Tigris. It

begins in the land of Armenia the greater, issuing out of a great

source; and evident to be seen in the very plaine (fonte conspicuo in

planitie). The place beareth the name of Elongosine (or Elegosine,

Elosine, Elegos). The river it selfe so long as it runs slow and

softly is named Diglito; but when it begins once to carry a more

forcible streame it is called Tigris, for the swiftnesse thereof;

which in the Median language betokens a shaft (sagitta). It runs into

the lake Arethusa; which beareth up aflote all that is cast into it,

suffering nothing to sinke; and the vapors that arise out of it carry

the sent of nitre. In this lake there is but one kind of fish, and that

entreth not into the chanell of Tigris as it passeth through, nor more

than any fishes swim out of Tigris into the water of the lake. In his

course and colour both he is unlike, and as he goes may be discerned

from the other: and being once past the lake, and incountreth the

great mountain Taurus, he loseth himself in a certain cave or hole

in the ground, and so runs under the hill, untill on the other side

thereof he breaketh forth again, and appeares in his likenesse, in a

place called Zoroanda. That it is the same river it is evident by this,

that he carrieth through with him, and showeth in Zoroanda, whatsoever

was cast into him before he hid himselfe in the cave aforesaid. After

this second spring and rising of his he enters into another lake, and

runneth through it likewise, named Thospites; and once again takes his

way under the earth through certain blind gutters, and 25 miles beyond

he putteth forth his head about Nymphæum. Claudius Cæsar reporteth,

that in the country Arrhene, the river Tigris runs so neere the

river Arsania, that when they both swell, and their waters are out,

they joyne both their streams together, yet so, as the water is not

mingled: for Arsanias being the lighter of the twain, swimmeth and

floteth over the other for the space wel-neere of 4 miles: but soon

after they part asunder, and Arsania turneth his course toward the

river Euphrates, into which he entreth."

We need not discuss in this place the phenomenon last mentioned,

except to remark that the story may well have been suggested by the

propinquity of the sources of the Diarbekr branch of the Tigris

to the stream of the Murad, the ancient Arsanias. The country

of Arrhene is probably the same as that better known as Arzanene,

which is comprised within the present vilayet of Diarbekr. Our present

interest in the passage lies in the statements relative to the Tigris,

that it flows through two lakes called Arethusa and Thospites. Strabo,

in speaking of the same phenomenon, attributes it to one lake only,

namely that of Arsene or Thopitis. The river, according to him, rises

in the Niphates mountains, by which name he seems to be referring

to the Nepat of Armenian writers, the modern Ala Dagh. After flowing

through Lake Thopitis it disappears in a chasm at the corner of the

lake. It comes to light again in the province of Chalonitis; and,

although later on he attributes that province to the Zagros, I cannot

help thinking that the sense which his informants wished to convey was

that it came to light in the mountains of the peripheral region. The

mention of two lakes by Pliny need not perplex us over-much; for

his Arethusa no doubt denotes the Arjish arm of Lake Van, and his

Thospites the principal body of water with the city of Van, the Dhuspas

of the cuneiform inscriptions, upon its eastern shore. Ptolemy, on

the other hand, entangles the subject still further by separating

the lakes of Areesa--no doubt the Arethusa of Pliny--and Thospitis

by four degrees of longitude. This geographer does not give us any

indications as to the properties of the lake waters; but he tells

us that the Tigris is partly a river of Armenia and that its sources

constitute Lake Thospitis. The position which he assigns to the town

of Artemita--which is probably the modern Artemid--is further evidence

that in speaking of Lake Areesa or Arsissa he was in fact referring to

Lake Van. One cannot help concluding that his Thospitis with the town

of Thospia was actually the self-same sheet of water. The discrepancy

in longitude finds a parallel in the degrees assigned by this writer

to Lakes Sevan and Urmi. They are really upon the same degree. Yet

Ptolemy, under the names of Lychnitis and Martianes, assigns to them

the difference of over four degrees.

I think it is plain that the names Thopitis, Thospites, Arsene,

Arethusa, and Areesa or Arsissa, are all applied to the great

basin with the two immemorial cities, Dhuspas--the modern Van--and

Arjish. Moreover, I should be surprised to learn that any lake

exhibiting the same properties had been discovered in the belt of

mountains south of Lake Van in which the present sources of the Tigris

are found. Put together, the scraps of information retailed by the

classical geographers go to show that in their days there existed a

widely spread belief that the Tigris drew its waters from the tableland

of Armenia, flowed through a lake strongly impregnated with soda, and

disappeared in a chasm at its further and narrow extremity (mychos)

to come to light again on the further side of the barrier of Taurus

or, in other words, of the parapet of mountains which are aligned

upon the south coast of Lake Van. The mention of two lakes by Pliny

and Ptolemy may point to a former isolation of the Arjish arm. I

have taken the trouble to set forth these accounts--though not with

all the care that I should desire--because they have an important

bearing upon the subject to which I now proceed--a brief notice of

some of the peculiarities which distinguish Lake Van.

It may not be out of place to cast one's look a little further so

as to include the other great lakes. That of Urmi in the Persian

frontier province of Azerbaijan has an area of 1823 square miles. Its

extreme length from north to south is about 80 miles, and its breadth

from east to west 24 miles. It resembles its neighbour on the west

in constituting an isolated basin, many rivers flowing in but none

out. On the other hand its insignificant depth invests it with the

character of a lagoon; the average being probably not more than 20

feet and the maximum some 45 or 50 feet. Evaporation must be very

rapid over such a sheet of water; and it is at once situated further

south than the lake of Van and at a level which is lower by 1500 feet

(Lake Urmi, 4100 feet; Lake Van, 5637 feet). Abnormal salinity is the

special feature about the waters of Lake Urmi; and extensive beds of

rock salt are found in their vicinity. It has been estimated that they

are six times as salt as the ocean, though only three-fifths as heavily

charged with saline matter as the waters of the Dead Sea. Viewed from

a height they are coloured a deep azure, a characteristic usual with

salt lakes. If they are allowed to dry upon the body of the bather

it is as though he had been covered with flour, and neither fish nor

molluscs can live within them. The shores of the lake, which are in

general low, are impregnated with salt; and the margin, upon which

are found fragments of fossil coral and shell, shines like a white

ribbon by the side of the blue. Three boats of not more than 20 tons

burden compose the entire fleet of this inland sea. [28]

Very different is the description which may be given of Lake Gökcheh

(the blue) or Sevan--the Lychnitis of Ptolemy, the lake of Gegham or

of Geghark in Armenian literature. It is situated at a level of 6340

feet, and is therefore the most elevated, if also the smallest, of

the three great sheets of water upon the surface of the tableland. It

lies at a distance of about 130 miles north of the northern shore of

Lake Urmi, and close to the barrier of the mountains of the northern

peripheral region. Its waters are sweet and support delicious salmon

trout; they are said to attain a depth of 360 feet, or, according to

another observer, of 425 feet. [29] Gökcheh is in fact essentially an

Alpine lake, lying restfully in the lap of a circle of mountains of

which those on the southern shore are of eruptive volcanic origin. It

has an outlet on the west to the river Zanga, and a portion of its

waters find their way through this channel to the Araxes. The balance

of opinion inclines to the view that this connection is of artificial

origin; and when the lake is low, especially in autumn, the stream

will be almost dry. [30]

But both Urmi and Gökcheh sink into obscurity when compared to the

lake of Van. Almost as large as the one and perhaps deeper than the

other, it at once combines some of the characteristics of either

basin and adds others essentially its own. Like Urmi its waters are

heavily charged, though with soda rather than with salt. Its great

elevation and its juxtaposition to the mountains of the peripheral

region recall corresponding features in Gökcheh. But like a book

which may borrow much from the work of other writers, and yet

produce an effect on the reader which is wholly new, so one opens

the landscape of Lake Van with that particular emotion which only

very beautiful and original objects can produce. With the wondrous

pieces of natural architecture about the margins of this inland sea

my reader will become perfectly familiar as this work proceeds. My

present object is to fly very low to the ground, and to notice such

facts as appeal to the mind rather than to the eye. The extreme length

of the lake would seem to measure 78 miles, and the breadth from north

to south of the principal body about 32 miles. To all appearance it

is very deep except at the north-east and south-west extremities;

but no systematic soundings have been taken to my knowledge, though

it would be extremely interesting to know whether indications can be

traced of the Arjish arm having once composed a separate unit. The

principal streams enter the easterly portion of the basin; they are

the Erishat or Irshat near Akantz, the Bendimahi Chai, the Marmed and

the Khoshab. Several little rivers are collected in the delta below

the old Akhlat, and quite a nice stream cascades into the lake at the

neighbouring village of Karmuch, which probably collects a portion of

the drainage of the plain between Nimrud and Lake Nazik. No issue of

the sea has yet been discovered. None of the copious springs which

feed the Tigris on the southern side of the parapet of mountain,

quite close to the flood washing its northern slopes, has yet been

shown to possess any of the strongly marked qualities characteristic

of the waters of Lake Van. One of the most remarkable of these springs

is situated near the south-west corner of the lake, at Sach in the

Güzel Dere or beauteous valley--a valley with a specially appropriate

name. [31] It has been examined by Major Maunsell, who describes it

as issuing from the base of a cliff and immediately constituting a

stream 50 yards wide and 18 inches deep. It is quite possible that

this source of the Tigris may have given colour to the belief of the

ancients that the river flowed through the lake and found an exit

at its further end by an underground channel. Another scarcely less

interesting fountain in the neighbourhood is that of Norshen at the

head of the plain of Mush. It rises in a circular pool with a diameter

of 105 feet, from which it wells over into a stream which runs to

the Euphrates. The natives hold that it is in connection with the

lake in the crater of Nimrud, and relate how a shepherd, whose staff,

weighted with a small parcel of coin, had sunk below the surface of

that deep mere, had one day been astonished to see the lost object

eddying in the current of the pool of Norshen. Careful scrutiny of

the spring during my second journey established the conviction that

it affords no outlet to Lake Van. Moreover, its position and the

delicious flavour of its water point to its being derived from the

limestones of the range on the south of the plain.

Analysis of the waters of Lake Van has furnished results which are

described as remarkable by the eminent chemist to whom I submitted

the sample which I brought home with me, and which I obtained by

swimming out from the rocky shore at Erkizan, some distance east of

the abandoned Ottoman fortress of Akhlat. The amount of suspended

matter has been found to be very trifling; while the proportion of

solids in solution, principally carbonates of potassium and sodium,

chlorides and sulphates, is very large indeed. It is estimated that

the alkalinity is equal to rather more than 3 1/4 ounces of ordinary

soda crystal dissolved in a gallon of water. The presence of a

little silica accompanies the alkali. The account given by Strabo of

the cleansing properties of the lake is thus confirmed in a striking

manner. Indeed, the bather issues from his swim as though his limbs had

been rubbed with soap--but with a soap of extremely agreeable quality,

leaving a velvety feeling upon the skin. The great buoyancy of the

waves enhances the pleasure of such exercise, and they are at once

pellucid and sparkling under the ruffle of the breeze. On the other

hand they are most unpleasant to the taste. The colour of the sheet

of water cannot be given in a single word; and indeed it varies with

extraordinary range of scale. A cobalt of great brilliancy is perhaps

the most normal hue; but a certain milky paleness is seldom quite

absent, becoming invested at morning and evening with an infinite

number of delicate tints. [32]

Only one kind of fish is found in Lake Van, resembling a large

bleak. But, often as I have bathed, I have never seen one gliding

through the water, or surprised a shoal while following the shore. It

is possible that they adhere to the estuaries of the rivers, up which

they make their way in large numbers to spawn during the season of

spring freshets. It is then that they are caught in great quantities

by means of barriers placed at the mouth of the streams with baskets

resting against one side. The fish leap the barrier and fall into

the baskets, after which they are dried and salted. Seagulls and

cormorants haunt the lake, but are not very numerous; nor have I

observed a pelican, although these birds are conspicuous on the

adjacent lake of Nazik together with many varieties of smaller

waterfowl. The main body of the sea never freezes over in winter,

rigorous as that season is at this high altitude.

A feature which has occupied considerable attention, especially

among German writers, is the fluctuation in level of these Armenian

lakes. There can be no doubt that they are all three subject to more

or less pronounced periodical changes; and various reasons have been

assigned. Do these fluctuations arise from the opening or closing

of subterraneous issues or from movements of the earth's crust? Or

may they be accounted for by ordinary climatic conditions, such as

the fall of snow and rain and the consequent variation in the volume

of the rivers and in the activity of springs? The economic state of

the country and the extent of irrigated land within the watershed has

been recognised as a factor, but a factor of insufficient importance

to produce the recorded results during the period reviewed. In the

case of Lake Van we are precluded from attributing these fluctuations

to the agency of subterraneous issues. Not a single one of such has

yet been discovered. Nor am I aware that any such outlets to Gökcheh

or Urmi have been noted by any traveller. The evidence which may be

collected in the case of all goes to show that the islands are as much

affected as the adjacent shores. It may therefore seem unlikely that

the changes arise from movements at the bottom of the lake; for these

would lift or depress the islands to some extent. [33] If I venture to

join in the discussion I would submit the suggestion that we should for

convenience group the phenomena under two heads. Temporary variations

should be distinguished from any differences of a more permanent

nature the existence of which it may be possible to prove. [34]

It cannot be expected that we should be able to collect evidence

of a satisfactory nature in respect of the changes which would fall

within the first category. We have to rely upon the statements and

even upon the inferences which may be derived from the writings

of travellers. Even if we could rest contented with the accuracy

and sufficiency of such testimony in the case of lakes which are

so much affected by the melting of the winter snows, it would not

establish, except in a very approximate manner, the beginnings and

ends of the successive phases. Still, the subject is so interesting

that it is worth while to collate the observations of which record

may be found. In the subjoined table I have endeavoured to perform

this task; and it has already been undertaken with great diligence

by Dr. Sieger. It will be seen that a certain correspondence may

occasionally be traced in the periodical fluctuations which have

affected the three sheets of water. [35] Perhaps the most remarkable

evidence in this sense is that which is furnished by the almost

simultaneous observations for 1898. Messrs. Belck and Lehmann for Lake

Gökcheh, Mr. Günther for Lake Urmi, and my companion, Mr. F. Oswald,

and myself for Lake Van, all bear witness to a rise in quite recent

years. Our own investigations were made during the month of July of

that year, and were confined to the westerly inlets of the lake. A

prominent feature about these inlets was the tendency of the streams

to form shallow lagoons behind a narrow barrier of alluvial sand. On

the margin or even in the bed of such lagoons one might often see a

group of willows. Some had been immersed a foot or two by the rise

in the waters; and, while their neighbours on dry land were green and

thriving, these were quite dead. The most notable example was observed

by Oswald within the little broken-down crater on the southern shore

opposite Akhlat. It receives the lake within its enfolding arms. We

have called it Sheikh Ora after a little village of that name which was

discovered in its south-east corner. Oswald sailed across to examine

this interesting spot while I was busily engaged at Akhlat. Between

the village and the water he came across a small grove of willows upon

which the lake had gained. Those above the water line were evidently

flourishing; but those which stood in the lake had been killed and

their bark withered, so that many of the stems were quite gaunt and

bare. The average diameter of the trunks of the dead and the living

was not appreciably different. It was therefore not a question of

an advance of the lake dating back very many years. On the other

hand there had been time for the chemical properties of the water to

exercise their destructive effect.

TABULAR STATEMENT OF THE EVIDENCE OF TRAVELLERS IN RESPECT OF THE

FLUCTUATIONS IN LEVEL OF THE THREE GREAT LAKES.

=====+=================================+=====+===============================+=====+===========================

=====+=================================+=====+===============================+=====+===========================

1806 |Jaubert attests a gradual rise | 1811|Morier attests a relapse. | |

| | | | |

| | 1812|Progressive relapse of | |

| | to | about 10 feet during this | |

| | 1829| period attested by Monteith | |

| | | | |

1838 |Brant attests a relapse which, | 1834|Relapse attested by Fraser | |

| 1838.] | | | | we may infer

| seq.) | | | | standing some 50

| Poghos of Lim to Dr. Belck | | | | p. 302).

| infers a rise during the | | 1899, p. 510). | | p. 414).

=====+=================================+=====+===============================+=====+===========================

The same phenomenon of a rise in level was apparent on the margin

of the large lake in the crater on Nimrud. There the brushwood,

representing the growth of many years, was submerged; and much had

already perished from want of sustenance. All the evidence points

to the fact that such changes are of a temporary nature, and that a

period of increase is followed by one of decline. The most probable

explanation is that they are due to climatic conditions, which, it

is well known, are variously operative over cycles of years. In the

absence of any observatory in these countries this question is largely

a matter of surmise or, at best, of inference. The existence of such

periodical fluctuations may be regarded as having been established;

it remains to consider the changes of a more permanent order.

We must not forget that at a period relatively recent in geological

time this lake of Van was but a part of an extensive inland sea,

which appears gradually to have become divided up into a series of

basins. There can be little doubt that down to quite a late geological

epoch no such barrier had been constituted between this basin and that

of the plain of Mush, which immediately adjoins it upon the west. The

waters have left their mark upon the rocky boundaries of that plain;

and to their action I do not think we should err in attributing the

peculiar appearance of the basal slopes of the Kerkür Dagh, where they

face the great depression of Mush. To the same period perhaps belong

several terraces which may be traced upon the bush-grown face of the

southern coast of Lake Van between Garzik and the Güzel Dere. The

highest of these is perhaps the most conspicuous, and may be situated

at an elevation of a hundred feet or more above the present level. Just

as the waters of the plain of Mush were drained away through a narrow

opening in the mountains which hem it in upon the west, so it is

quite likely that a similar vent was offered by the gorge which cuts

through the parapet of Taurus in the direction of Bitlis, and at the

present day affords an easy passage to the caravans from the plains of

Armenia into the defiles of Kurdistan. Loftus chronicles a tradition

that the waters of Lake Van cover a plain that was once studded with

villages and gardens. The streams of Arjish and the Bendimahi Chai--and

presumably the Khoshab--are said to have met and formed one large

river about midway between Arjish and Bitlis. His informants were

under the belief that it had issued from the plain through a hole in

the earth; and that when this passage had been closed up by a sudden

convulsion the present lake formed. [36] This story is at least not

lacking in verisimilitude, so far as the existence of a former river

is concerned. This river would have probably flowed to the Tigris,

of which it would have been the principal branch. The cause of its

being dammed up was perhaps the outpouring of lavas from Nimrud, which

have formed the plateau between Tadvan and the head of the plain of

Mush--a plateau which rises to a height of 680 feet above the lake,

and, extending across from Nimrud to the face of Taurus in the south,

chokes the entrance to the Bitlis gorge. It is this barrier which

actually maintains the lake of Van. No eruptions on this scale are

recorded during the historical period; and, of course, it is not

impossible that they were originally submarine.

These phenomena, which are partly attested by the ancient lake

terraces and in part suggested by the general structure of the country,

belong to an epoch which, if quite modern from the standpoint of the

geologist, probably lies beyond the range of the archæologist as well

as of the historian. Much the same conditions as at the present day

appear to have prevailed during the historical period--a vast sheet of

water, deep and translucent, dammed up by the volcanic barrier at its

westerly extremity. I think there can be no doubt that the permanent

tendency of this sheet of water has been to rise in level. Moreover,

all the evidence is to the effect that this tendency has been operative

in the case of the other two seas. Dr. Belck has recorded that in the

year 1890 during the month of July he came across a little lake at

the eastern end of Lake Gökcheh, separated from it by a tongue of land

scarcely more than 55 yards broad, and connected with it by a stream

descending from the mountains and piercing through the isthmus. On

the margin of this shallow lagoon, near the outflow of the stream,

he discovered an ancient Armenian graveyard of which the stones were

under water. When he returned in August of the following year they

were only just dry. His visit coincided with the latest stage of

a period of decline; and it seems certain that since the time when

the cemetery was constituted the norm about which the fluctuations

oscillate had risen in a marked degree. The same traveller draws our

attention to the interesting circumstance that the three last lines

of the cuneiform inscription of Rusas the First (c. 730-714 B.C.),

cut in the face of the rock overlooking that same northern lake, have

been almost completely destroyed by the erosion of the waters, although

placed just above their level in 1891. It seems incredible that the

Vannic king should have engraved his memorial in a situation where it

would be exposed to the periodical floods. [37] As regards Lake Urmi

I need only recall the important discovery of Mr. Günther in 1898. In

the islands of that sea he found many species of living animals which

could not have crossed the stretch of salt water, amounting to a

distance of some 10 miles, that at present separates their homes from

the shore. In his opinion the zoology affords conclusive testimony of

these islands having been joined to the mainland at no very distant

date. Upon one of them he found the skeleton of a wild sheep. [38]

The evidence which may be collected upon the shores of Lake Van all

points in the same direction of a progressive upward tendency.

Strecker has thrown out the suggestion that this process may be

accountable for the junction of the Arjish arm to the main body;

and that we may therefore attach some credence to the statements of

Pliny that in his time there were two lakes. [39] However this may be,

we are not dependent upon such hypotheses, or upon the stories current

of submerged causeways or bridges. The three old fortresses of Akhlat,

Adeljivas and Arjish all bear testimony to a considerable rise in the

level of the lake since the days when they were built. The walls of

the first two on the side of the water have either fallen in or are

being slowly undermined. Arjish has been permanently abandoned by its

inhabitants. Immemorial villages, like that of Kizvag between Akhlat

and Tadvan, are being menaced by the latest periodical increase, which

seems to have commenced about 1895. Nature herself speaks eloquently

in the same sense. An ancient walnut-tree which stands on the rocky

bank of the lake in the gardens of Erkizan, a quarter of Akhlat,

had already been deprived of a great portion of its foothold when we

encamped beneath its boughs in 1898. In the Sheikh Ora crater a giant

mulberry, which may have been some 500 years old, was standing with

half its roots in the water and was already doomed. The most obvious

explanation of this gradual rise in the norm of the lake level is

furnished by a cause, which must be constantly operative, namely the

increase of sediment deposited upon the bottom. But whether this factor

by itself be sufficient to have produced such important changes is

a question upon which I am not qualified to pronounce an opinion. [40]

II.--THE ANCIENT EMPIRE OF VAN

Deep in the curve of the bay, which with minor indentations extends

from the promontory and island of Ktutz to Artemid, lies the

isolated rock with the mediæval city at its southern foot and the

long line of gardens stretching eastwards across the plain towards

the slopes of Mount Varag. These various features are disclosed or

suggested in my illustration (Fig. 123), which was taken from those

distant slopes. But before I invite my reader to explore the ancient

township, something must be said upon a topic which here fascinates the

traveller's interest equally with the characteristics of the strange

lake beside which he sojourns. I have already on several occasions

remarked upon the insignificance of the human element in these Armenian

landscapes. At Van for the first time we become sensible of a different

impression, derived, not indeed from the peoples who now inhabit

the country, but from the monuments of a remote civilisation which

abound in the neighbourhood, and of which the spirit is wafted towards

us across the ages. Here the massive substructures of an aqueduct,

there the Cyclopean masonry of the fragment of a wall tell the tale

of man's mastery over Nature, and insensibly conjure the vision of

the plains crossed by great roads, the rivers spanned by bridges,

the fertilising waters brought from afar. Our curiosity is enhanced by

the inscriptions in the cuneiform character which are deeply incised

in the hard stone of the various works. But it rises to the degree of

fervour when we survey the rock of Van, clearly recognised as the very

navel of this old polity. Its precipitous sides are quite a library

of inscriptions, carved upon their face in spaces polished by human

hands. Square-cut shadows disclose the entrances of chambers hewn into

the calcareous mass at a considerable height above the level of the

plain. And something in the spirit of the works and in the choice

of situation at once distinguishes them from the rock dwellings,

such as those at Vardzia near Akhalkalaki, with which we have become

familiar during the course of our journey south. It is evident that

in their original purpose they were only a feature of a large design

which mocks the scale of the existing fortifications.

By what people were they inscribed, these regular lines of elegant

characters; and who were the kings who sojourned upon this delightful

platform, which seems to have been raised by a freak of Nature in the

midst of the plain with its westerly extremity almost reaching into

the lake? Armenians, Persians, Arabs, Seljuks, Tartars, Turkomans,

Turks--all have come and passed or stayed, and none have been able

to return an answer to the question invited by the writings on the

citadel. They have had recourse to the resources of Oriental legend,

or have been content with the explanation that these inscriptions

are talismans, sealing treasures long since buried in the heart

of the rock. The fame of the place is widely spread over all the

surrounding country, forming as it does the kernel of a populous city

on the confines of Armenia and Kurdistan. It has been described by the

national historian of the Armenians in terms which in many respects

portray the existing features in a singularly faithful manner. Moses

of Khorene attributes the works to an Assyrian queen Semiramis,

and relates on the authority of Mar Abas Katina and from Chaldæan

sources the story of her fruitless passion for the reigning king of

Armenia, Ara, and of the death of that monarch while resisting her

endeavours to obtain his person by force. The queen is said to have

accompanied her armies to the northern kingdom, and to have founded

the city as a summer residence for her luxurious court. The tale is

beset by incidents which reveal its fabulous nature; and the historian

informs us that several such legends relating to Semiramis were current

among his own countrymen. [41] At the same time he deplores the lack

of culture among his ancestors, to which he ascribes the absence of

native annals. [42]

It has been reserved for our own age to penetrate the mystery, which,

indeed, is only now as I write being dispelled. Quite early in the

nineteenth century, while the future excavators of the Assyrian cities

were either unborn or were still in their nurseries, a young French

student, Jean Antoine Saint Martin, the son of a tradesman in Paris,

was fired by the account of the inscriptions at Van contained in the

pages of Moses of Khorene. [43] Mainly through his efforts the French

Government--always solicitous of the interests of culture--were induced

to despatch a mission to Armenia in 1827, engaging the services of a

young German professor, Friedrich Eduard Schulz. The first report of

the explorer was published by Saint Martin in 1828. [44] By a piece of

misfortune, happily rare in the annals of travel in these countries,

Schulz was murdered by the Kurds in 1829. But his papers were recovered

and brought to Paris, where they seem to have awaited in obscurity the

awakening of interest in Oriental antiquities which was consequent upon

the discoveries of Burnouf, of Lassen, and of Rawlinson. An instructive

memoir, together with copies of forty-two inscriptions at Van and in

the neighbourhood, appeared under his name in 1840 in the pages of the

Journal Asiatique. Schulz's copies have been found to be in the main

remarkably accurate, although he had not the smallest knowledge of the

language in which they were composed. Little by little the contents of

the tablets in a similar character which are spread over Persia yielded

up the secrets which they had so long maintained; and the excavations

in Mesopotamia furnished Orientalists with the necessary material to

enable them to understand the languages of the cuneiform inscriptions

furnished in such profusion by the buried cities of the plains. But

with the exception of the great tablet in three columns and as many

tongues which is such a conspicuous object on the southern face of the

rock of Van (Schulz, Nos. IX., X., and XI.), and an inscription on a

stone in the remains of a wall at its base (Schulz, No. I.), none of

the Vannic records agreed with the syllabaries already discovered,

or could be translated into any known language. Schulz had indeed

perceived that the first of these monuments contained the names and

titles of Xerxes, son of Darius; and when Layard visited Van and took

new copies in 1850, it had come to be recognised that this tablet of

Xerxes resembled other Achæmenian inscriptions, and was very nearly

word for word the same as those of this Persian monarch at Hamadan

and Persepolis. [45] The characters upon the stone in the wall were

exactly the same as those of Assyrian writings; and, although the

inscription had not been satisfactorily deciphered when Layard's

book was published, that investigator was able to discern that

the language also was Assyrian, while that of all the remainder,

in spite of the similarity in character, was peculiar to Van,

and baffled decipherment. In the meanwhile other equally perplexing

inscriptions had been discovered in districts of the tableland remote

from the city of Semiramis; and a partially successful endeavour had

been made by the English Orientalist Hincks to read the mysterious

texts. [46] But the problem remained unsolved for very many years,

while the stock of inscriptions collected by travellers in various

parts of Armenia was continually increasing. A great step forward

was made by the discovery by M. Stanislas Guyard, announced in 1880,

[47] that the phrase at the conclusion of many of the Vannic texts

represented the imprecatory formula found in the same place in their

Assyrian and Achæmenian counterparts; and this enabled Professor

Sayce of Oxford to proceed rapidly with their decipherment, upon

which he had been engaged for some years. [48] Mainly as the result

of his labours we are now enabled to gather their meaning, and to add

a new language and a new people to the museum of the ancient Oriental

world. Since he has written, the number of known Vannic texts has been

doubled by the German scholars and travellers, Professor Lehmann and

Dr. Belck. They have also, in a series of most instructive articles,

called up the vanished civilisation from the grave. [49]

We now know who built Van and by whom these tablets were engraved

upon the face of the citadel. As the horizon opens with each advance

in our acquisition of the vocabulary and with each addition to the

catalogues of texts, we are introduced to no obscure dynasty which

slept secure behind the mountains, but to a splendid monarchy which

for at least two centuries rivalled the claims of Assyria to the

dominion of the ancient world. The native designation of the imperial

people was that of Khaldians or children of Khaldis, just as the

Assyrians reflect the name of their god, Assur. The constitution

of the State was that of a theocracy in which Khaldis occupied the

supreme place. The company of the remaining deities were spoken of as

his ministers, and the whole land appears to have borne his name. [50]

It was the wrath of Khaldis that was invoked against whosoever should

destroy the tablets; and with him were coupled in a kind of Trinity

the god of the air and the sun-god. The seat of Khaldis was the city

of Dhuspas, the modern Van; and all conquests were made by the king

in his name. Dhuspas was the capital of the territory of Biaina,

from which the king derived his title. We can readily trace through

literature the corruption of the word Biaina into the existing form,

Van; it figures in the shape of Buana in the writings of Ptolemy and

in that of Iban as late as Cedrenus. [51] In the course of time it

had come to be applied to the city; while the name of the city was

transferred to the province in which it was placed, and became the

Dosp or Tosp of Armenian writers. [52] The contemporaries and rivals

of the Vannic monarchs, the rulers of Assyria, styled the northern

kingdom Urardhu or Urarthu; and this is the same name that appears

in the Bible in the familiar form of Ararat. They make no mention of

the local appellation of Biaina; although it seems possible that the

district called Bitanu or Bitani in the Assyrian inscriptions may be

connected with the latter name. [53] On the other hand there can be

little doubt that the Turuspa of the Assyrian annals is the Dhuspas

of the monuments of Van.

The Khaldians take their place in this new chapter of history

at least as early as the latter half of the ninth century before

Christ. Their language was neither Semitic nor Indo-European; and it

is therefore impossible to connect them either with the Assyrians, who

were Semites, or with the Armenians, who belong to the Indo-European

family. They ruled over the tableland which is now Armenia before the

Armenians had appeared upon the scene; and it was the movement of

races with which was connected the Armenian immigration that seems

ultimately to have occasioned their dispersal and the overthrow of

their power. Their dominion appears to have been due in no small

degree to the happy choice of Van as their capital. Assyrian history

ranges beyond the probable date of that foundation, to a period when

Urardhu was perhaps an obscure province in the neighbourhood of the

modern Rowanduz in Kurdistan. The Assyrian armies in their marches

northwards were opposed by a confederacy of petty princes whose country

is called Nairi in the Assyrian inscriptions. That loose term evidently

embraced a considerable portion of the Armenian tableland; for it

was in the plain of Melazkert that the Assyrian king, Tiglath-Pileser

I. (c. 1100 B.C.), [54] overthrew the united forces of the kings of

Nairi and erected a memorial tablet which has been preserved to the

present day. [55] In a restricted sense the name Nairi was applied

by the Assyrians to the province about the middle and upper course

of the Great Zab; and the lakes of Van and Urmi, between which that

territory was situated, were both known as the Upper seas or seas of

the land of Nairi, Lake Van being sometimes distinguished as the Upper

sea of the West, and Lake Urmi as the Eastern or even as the Lower

sea. [56] The kingdom of Urardhu is for the first time mentioned

by the Assyrians in the reign of Ashur-nasir-pal (885-860 B.C.);

but it is not before the ensuing reign of Shalmaneser II. (860-825

B.C.) that we have certain evidence of an Assyrian army marching into

Armenia to attack the territories not of a league of Nairi princes

but of a monarch of Urardhu. This prince, of whom no records have

been discovered in Armenia, is called Arame. His capital, of which

the site is at present unknown, but which certainly lay to the north

of Lake Van, bears the name of Arzasku. Arame was signally defeated

in 857 or 856 B.C. and abandoned his capital. His cities as far as

the sources of the Euphrates (Murad?) were taken by Shalmaneser in

845 or 844 B.C. When next we hear of a king of Urardhu we are able

to recognise in his name the earliest of the rulers who appear in the

Vannic texts. And this monarch, Sarduris the First, the contemporary

of the same Shalmaneser and his antagonist about 833 B.C., was the

founder of the fortress of Van.

No better position for a stronghold against a Power operating from the

lowlands in the south could have been discovered by the builders of an

empire on the Armenian plains. In the later phases of the history of

Armenia the movements of empires and peoples have generally proceeded

between the east and the west. Against such currents the city of Van

composes a minor obstacle, which they avoid on their more normal and

northerly course. Always secure with a fleet on the lake and the passes

of Mount Varag fortified, the true military value of the place only

advances into first-rate importance when the centres of the hostile

forces lie in Mesopotamia. It is screened in that direction by perhaps

the most impenetrable section of the entire outer or Iranian arc of

the peripheral mountains which support the tableland. [57] Moreover,

the circumstance that the arc has snapped and sent out a splinter

into the districts on the north, represented by the mountains in which

the Great Zab has its source, and, further north, by the elevated but

not impassable waterparting between the basin of Lake Van and that of

the Araxes, has had the effect of concealing Van within the fork of

a twofold parapet where it reposes with its back against the complex

barrier and defies attack from the south or south-east. The approach

from the west along the southern shore of the lake is interrupted by

the spurs of the great range; and the Assyrian armies were compelled

to make the détour by the plain of Melazkert, gaining the plateau by

one of the passes north of Diarbekr and leaving it upon their return

home through one of the passages east of Rowanduz where the sea of

mountains settles down to a regular course. Such an immense circuit

through a hostile country necessitated resources on a vast scale, the

existence of which among the Assyrians fills the mind with admiration

when we contemplate the squalor of the Oriental empires of the present

day. But there can be no doubt that all the advantages lay on the side

of their northern adversaries, to whom was offered a reasonable chance

of annihilating their hosts, or, in the event of defeat, the secure

alternative of shutting themselves up in their capital and there

awaiting the passing over of the storm. These considerations serve

to explain the comparative immunity and the rapid development of the

empire of the successors of Sarduris the First; at a time, too, when

Assyria was governed by such warlike monarchs as Shamshi-Ramman and

Ramman-nirari. [58] It was reserved for Tiglath-Pileser the Third to

beard the lion in his den, and to appear before the walls of Van. But

even this gigantic figure failed to capture the citadel, although he

appears to have destroyed the garden town at its feet (735 B.C.). [59]

The ultimate effects of his campaign may be measured by the fact that

the inveterate and sometimes successful adversary of Sargon (722-705

B.C.) was the Vannic king Rusas the First. And the northern empire

is still a force with which the Assyrians have to reckon as late as

Ashur-bani-pal, the Sardanapalus of the Greeks (668-626 B.C.).

So far as our knowledge at present extends we may regard Sarduris the

First as the initiator of a remarkable and far-reaching revolution

among the peoples of the tableland. The title which this monarch

bears, that of king of Nairi, as compared with that of his successors,

kings of Biaina, [60] connects him with the earlier period of the

confederacy of Nairi princes which his dynasty under the ægis of

the god Khaldis was destined to supplant. His son, Ispuinis, and his

grandson Menuas at once extended the empire and added to the works

upon the citadel of Van; and the latter was the principal author of

that magnificent canal which to the present day under the fanciful

name of Shamiram-Su, or river of Semiramis, conducts the waters

of the Khoshab to the suburbs of Van. [61] Menuas may, therefore,

be considered as the founder of the garden town; although at that

time it is probable that it was situated south of the citadel rather

than, as is now the case, at some distance to the east. [62] During

the reign of the successor of Menuas, Argistis the First, the Vannic

dynasty reached the zenith of its power. The kinglets of the valley

of the Araxes had been dispossessed of their fertile territories, and

the great city which was afterwards known as Armavir rose from the

banks of the river in honour of the god of Van. The whole extent of

the Armenian tableland, such as it is described in the present work,

with the possible exception of some of the most northerly districts,

was subject to the rulers residing on the shore of the great lake;

and their inscriptions recording conquests are found as far east as

the province south of Lake Urmi and as far west as the Euphrates near

Malatia. In that direction they came in contact with the Hittites;

while their neighbours on the east were none other than the Minni of

Scripture, residing in the more southerly portion of the Urmi basin

and the adjacent districts. [63] The inscriptions on the rock of Van

enumerate the feats of arms of Argistis the First and Sarduris the

Second. No records have yet been found further north than Lake Gökcheh,

Kanlija, near Alexandropol, and Hasan Kala, near Erzerum. South of

their capital the wild districts of Shatakh, Norduz and Mukus have

been scoured by travellers in quest of such monuments, but hitherto

without result.

With one exception no systematic excavations have yet been made

upon any of the sites of the cities and strongholds of the Vannic

kings. When these shall have been undertaken we may expect to have

drawn an impressive picture of the attainments of their people in

the arts. The single instance of such efforts--and it is not one of

which we need be proud [64]--has been directed to the low limestone

hills which overlook the gardens of Van upon the north, and which

in their neighbourhood bear the name of Toprak Kala. In or about

the years 1879 and 1880 operations were conducted upon this eminence

under the direction, as I have gathered, of Captain Clayton, then our

consul at Van, and of Mr. Hormuzd Rassam. [65] Tunnels were opened

into that part of the site which disclosed the buried remains of an

ancient settlement, and which was found to have been covered with

buildings composed for the most part of sun-dried bricks. The most

important result of the enterprise was the laying bare of a temple,

still containing quite a number of bronze shields with cuneiform

inscriptions, embossed and chased with ornamental designs and the

figures of animals. Some of these may be seen in the British Museum

and others in the Museum at Berlin. They represent votive offerings

on the part of the kings, and were suspended upon the walls in the

manner shown by an existing bas-relief from the palace of Sargon

at Khorsabad. Indeed that sculpture portrays the destruction by the

Assyrians of the temple of Khaldis in the city of Mutsatsir, not very

far from the present town of Rowanduz. The dimensions of the edifice

were small, only 69 feet by 44 feet, measured at the foundations. But

the walls were built of great blocks of hewn stone, and traces of

a pavement in a kind of mosaic were found. The doors appear to have

been of bronze. Outside the entrance stood a block of marble which

was hollowed out and was probably used for sacrifices. At the time

of my visit little was to be seen of this interesting structure,

for the vandal townspeople had removed its masonry for building

purposes. Large faced blocks, taken thence and perhaps from other

edifices, were being rolled down the hillside. Only a fraction of the

objects found was brought away by Messrs. Clayton and Rassam; their

workmen abstracted the remainder, from whose hands some portions

have filtered into Europe. Toprak Kala has quite recently (1898)

been the scene of further excavations, this time on the part of

Messrs. Belck and Lehmann. They have dug out the substructures of the

temple to its foundations, cleared away the rubbish which obstructed

a long subterraneous passage, debouching into a large chamber which

may have served as a reservoir, and which was fed by an artificial

duct deriving its water from a neighbouring spring; and discovered

a wine-cellar containing colossal vats, some engraved with Vannic

writing and one with a Persian cuneiform inscription. We also owe to

their labours the discovery not far from the temple of a space which

seems to have been set apart to receive the bones of the sacrificial

animals and of the human beings, captives of war, who had been offered

up to the god. They have acquired numerous objects, of silver as well

as of bronze and iron, including weapons and ornaments of various

kinds. But the principal service which they have rendered is the

identification of Toprak Kala with the city of Rusas mentioned in the

stele near Keshish Göl on the slopes of Mount Varag. The inscription

on that monument, if rightly deciphered, leaves little doubt that King

Rusas, probably the first of that name, made use of that little lake

as a partly natural and partly artificial reservoir, and conducted

its waters along the foot of the Toprak Kala heights to the region

occupied by the present site of the garden town. The earliest ruler

mentioned on the shields is Rusas the Second; while we know from their

contents that the temple was built or restored by Rusas the Third in

honour of the god Khaldis. All the indications favour the assumption

that in consequence of the depredations of Tiglath-Pileser the Third

some change was made in the disposition of the city. The heights of

Toprak Kala seem in some degree to have usurped the importance of

the citadel, and to have been used as defences for the extension of

the gardens in that direction. [66]

The culture of the Vannic kingdom was perhaps borrowed from the

Assyrians and was certainly derived from the Mesopotamian plains. The

legend of the passion of the queen of Assyria, the consort of the

eponymous hero Ninus, for an Armenian king who suffers death at her

hands and is restored to life, [67] contains, so far as it expresses

the intercourse of the pre-Armenian peoples, a considerable kernel

of truth. Ara and Semiramis are none other than Tammuz and Istar,

the Adonis and the Aphrodite of the Hellenic myth; and the advent

from Assyria of the voluptuous queen in quest of a beautiful but

reluctant lover may be connected with the introduction from abroad of

the worship of Istar. [68] However this may be, it is certain that

the earliest inscriptions found at Van are in the Assyrian language

and character; while those of the successors of Sarduris the First,

although composed in the Vannic tongue, show but slight deviations from

the cuneiform writing as practised at Nineveh. There is evidence to

show that long after the disappearance of the empire of the Khaldians

Assyrian influences lingered on in the land. I shall have occasion to

remark these traces in the study of the architecture of the church at

Akhtamar; and they compose a factor which should never be quite absent

from the mind when examining the masterpieces of Armenian mediæval

art. The Vannic dynasty are not the symbol of resistance on the part

of rude mountaineers to the approach of civilisation moving up from

its immemorial seats. Far rather do they represent the beneficent

spread of arts and letters over the Armenian plains. The favourite

sites of their cities are not the recesses of the mountains of the

tableland, but some small eminence from a wide extent of level and

fertile ground, as typically embodied by the rock of Van and the mound

of Armavir. They are builders of canals to irrigate the land, of roads

to traverse even the scarcely passable ridges of the peripheral region,

of bridges to span the great rivers. If we are still in the dark with

respect to their ethnic affinities, we need harbour no doubts upon

the character of the civilisation which they contributed to diffuse.

Like Adonis they have been carried down the stream of time, and over

them the eddy has long since closed. The spade of the archæologist

reveals the charred remains of their later stronghold on the heights

of Toprak Kala overlooking the gardens of Van. But by what people

and at what date were they stricken to the ground, and their temples

and palaces given to the flames? It is the disadvantage of a history

which is derived from inscriptions, that issues as well as origins

must remain obscure. I am not aware that any certain answer can

be given to the first part of the question, and the date of the

supreme catastrophe which must have overtaken the city can only

be approximately fixed. The Vannic records differ in one important

respect from those of Assyria; they do not contain a single date. The

chronology is therefore dependent upon the mention in them of an

Assyrian monarch or by the Assyrians of a contemporary ruler of

Urardhu. The latest inscriptions hitherto discovered belonging to the

northern kingdom are those of Rusas the Third, the son of Erimenas,

who lived in the time of Ashur-bani-pal. But a successor of this

prince is mentioned in the Assyrian annals as having sent an embassy

to Nineveh about 644 B.C. His name is the familiar one of Sarduris,

and he takes his place as the third king of that name. It would appear

likely that at the time of his embassy he had only just begun to reign;

and we should probably be justified in protracting the span covered

by the Vannic dynasty at least as late as the death of Ashur-bani-pal

(c. 626 B.C.). This date brings us down to the dawn of Oriental history

as contained in the works of Greek writers. In the pages of Herodotus

the Armenian tableland as well as Assyria form portions of the great

empire of Darius (521-486 B.C.) and Xerxes (485-465 B.C.), which had

succeeded the loose rule of the Scythians. And this new era has left

behind it one of the most impressive of the monuments upon the rock of

Van. On its southern face, in full view of the walled town at its base,

is inscribed the trilingual record of the Persian conquest. "A great

god is Ormazd, who is the greatest of gods, who has created this earth,

who has created that heaven, who has created mankind, who has given

happiness to man, who has made Xerxes king, sole king of many kings,

sole lord of many. I am Xerxes the great king, the king of kings,

the king of the provinces with many languages, the king of this

great earth far and near, son of king Darius the Achæmenian. Says

Xerxes the king: Darius the king, my father, did many works through

the protection of Ormazd, and on this hill he commanded to make his

tablet and an image; yet an inscription he did not make. Afterwards

I ordered this inscription to be written. May Ormazd, along with all

the gods, protect me and my kingdom and my work. [69]

Years before this noble pronouncement was engraved in its imperishable

arrowheads the empire of Assyria had come to an end. Nineveh was laid

desolate in 606 B.C. by her Babylonian subjects assisted by the hordes

of the Scythian king. [70] Within a very brief period of the history

of these countries ethnic changes on a vast scale had taken place. New

nations had appeared upon the scene. The Cimmerian nomads, followed

closely by the wild tribes of Scythia, had penetrated southwards from

the countries on the north of Caucasus and swarmed over the settled

lands. Ancient kingdoms tottered and fell into the human surge. It

is just at this period that we come to hear of the Armenians. All the

evidence points to the conclusion that they entered their historical

seats from the west, [71] as a branch of a considerable immigration

of Indo-European peoples crossing the straits from Europe into Asia

Minor and perhaps originally coming from homes in the steppes north

of the Black Sea. Just as their kinsmen, invading Europe, drove the

old races before them, such as the Etruscans, the Ligurians, and the

Basques, so the Armenians seem to have filled the void which may have

been created by the ravages of the Scythians and to have supplanted

the subjects of the old Khaldian dynasty in the possession of the

plains of the tableland.

That this revolution was not accomplished until at least as late

as the fifth century before Christ may be gathered from the pages

of Herodotus. The Armenians are known to this father of historians

as inhabiting the mountainous country about the sources of the Halys

and those of the Tigris, extending round towards the Mediterranean in

the neighbourhood of Cilicia, their boundary on this side being the

Euphrates. [72] On the other hand the Khaldians or Urardhians have

not already disappeared, although they have obviously declined to a

subordinate position. They are mentioned under the name of Alarodians,

[73] and they are joined with the Matienians and Saspeires or Sapeires

in the eighteenth satrapy of the Persian empire. [74] Herodotus leaves

us in the dark as to the exact localities in which they lived, although

he indicates that the seats of the Saspeires lay to the south of the

Kolchians, who inhabited the southern shore of the Black Sea in the

neighbourhood of the Phasis. [75] He informs us that Alarodians and

Saspeires were both armed like the Kolchians, and the fact that the

satrapies were organised with a view to ethnic affinities suggests

the possibility that the two names first mentioned had come to be

applied to one and the same race. Other considerations seem to point

in the same direction. Down to a comparatively recent period we find

a people called Chaldians (as written in the Greek character) or

Chaldæans occupying the mountains between Trebizond and Batum. There

can be little doubt that they represented the remnants of the Vannic

people, and they were almost certainly the same as the Alarodians of

Herodotus and probably the same as the Saspeires, who have perhaps

left their name to the present town of Ispir. [76] When the Armenians

had expelled the ancient inhabitants from the settled country we know

from a most interesting chapter in the Cyropædeia of Xenophon that

the latter took refuge in the mountains. They fortified inaccessible

peaks and lived by plunder, raiding down upon the plains. [77] Our

knowledge of the geography may at this point assist our historical

investigations; and we may be reasonably sure that we shall find the

relics of the dispossessed Khaldians inhabiting the fastnesses of

the peripheral ranges which border Armenia upon the north and south.

That this was the case in the northern region is proved by the long

survival of the name Chaldia (= Khaldia) among those inhospitable

heights. Professor Lehmann has collected with a thoroughness of which

his countrymen alone seem capable, a catalogue of passages in Greek

and Byzantine writers making mention either of the Chaldian people or

of the province to which they gave their name. [78] That people are

sometimes called Chaldæans in classical authors. But that this was an

error seems sufficiently proved by the name of the province--Chaldia;

by the survival side by side of the variant form--Chaldians, and by the

practice of Armenian writers to distinguish between the name of the

tribe on their northern frontiers and that of the Chaldæans. Chaldia

with the capital Trebizond formed one of the military themes of the

Byzantine empire; and I should like to add yet another reference

to the lists of Professor Lehmann, this one taken from the travels

of the Castilian ambassador, Don Ruy Gonzalez Clavigo, in the year

1404. Setting out from Trebizond on his way to Erzinjan, we find him

travelling on the third day out through the snowy mountains of the

province of Chaldia to the castle of Tzanich which stood on a crag;

and on the morrow, in the evening, he arrives at the castle of the

duke of Chaldia, where all caravans pay toll. The territory formed

a part of the empire of the Grand Comneni; and the name has survived

to the present day as that of a diocese of the Greek Church with the

capital Gümüshkhaneh on the road from Trebizond to Baiburt. [79]

It is not so easy to trace the remnants of this ancient people in

the southern zone of mountains. Their presence there is attested by

the march of Xenophon with the relics of the Ten Thousand. A body

of Chaldæan or, more properly, of Chaldian mercenaries oppose his

passage of the Bohtan branch of the Tigris. [80] They are described

as of independent spirit and warlike nature, and, like the Karduchi,

the modern Kurds, as still maintaining their political freedom. One is

tempted to enquire whether the present so-called Chaldæan or Assyrian

Christians, who are spread about the districts in the neighbourhood of

Julamerik watered by the Great Zab, may not supply the necessary and

missing link. But here we approach a thorny and difficult question,

upon which the limitations of the present enquiry forbid us to

touch. [81] It will be better capable of discussion when some unanimity

shall have been attained upon the origin and ethnic affinities of

the subjects of the old Vannic kings. The Chaldæan Christians are

reputed to have fled into the mountains from Mesopotamia as late as

the era of Timur. Baghdad and then Mosul would seem to have been

the earlier seats of their patriarchate. The name Chaldæan is not

one which they apply to themselves, although they believe in their

"Assyrian" origin. There is held by some scholars to be the widest

etymological and original difference between the name of the people who

were called after the god Khaldis and that of the Babylonian Chaldees

or Chaldæans. But the question of a possible racial or cultural link

between them cannot at present be regarded as already negatived. [82]

Although the whole subject of the Vannic kingdom has scarcely yet

arrived beyond its infantile stages, the knowledge already attained

serves to throw quite a flood of light upon the early history of

Armenia and of the Armenians. In a former chapter [83] I had occasion

to remark the obscurity of Armenian chronicles prior to the advent

of their Arsakid dynasty. The people known as Armenians to Darius

and to classical writers have always been accustomed to prefer

the name of their reputed progenitor, Hayk, the son of Togarmah,

great-grandson of Japhet. They call themselves the Hayk or children

of Hayk. They believe that their ancestor emigrated from Babylon in

a north-westerly direction and ultimately arrived upon the shores of

Lake Van. They style the line of their primeval kings the Haykian

dynasty, and they relate in a fabulous manner the early struggles

of this dynasty with the Assyrian Power. Their historians admit

that for this period they are destitute of native annals, and they

deplore the illiterateness of their forefathers. It would almost seem

as if they had presented us with a darkened and legendary account

of the history of their predecessors, possibly mingled with the

experiences of their own race. That the people of the Vannic kings

were not Armenians is proved by the distinctive character of their

language. That their empire continued to exist until at least as

late as the latter half of the seventh century before Christ is a

fact which is beyond doubt. Nothing which we might be inclined to

attribute to the Armenians has been found at Toprak Kala. On the

other hand, we may gather from Xenophon that after a period of mutual

distrust the Armenians intermarried with the Khaldians whom they had

dispossessed. [84] To this extent they may inherit the blood of that

ancient people which gave to Armenia a degree of civilisation which

in many respects it has not been privileged since to enjoy.

The Armenians, like all capable and conquering races, borrowed

much from the and attainments of the older inhabitants. Their most

ancient cities--Van, Armavir, and perhaps Melazkert and Arjish--were

foundations of the Vannic kings. The city of Hayk, as it has long

been called, in the Hayotz-dzor, south-east of Van, has disclosed to

the first essays of the modern archæologist the familiar features

of a Khaldian settlement. [85] But Persian influences left upon

them a more visible impression; and their supreme god during the

pre-Christian era was not the Khaldis of the Vannic texts but the

Ormazd of the inscription of Xerxes, "who has created this earth,

who has created that heaven, who has created mankind." [86]

Sequence of the Vannic Kings. [87]

Arame.--No inscriptions. Known only through those of the Assyrian king,

in which he is styled king of Urardhu. Attacked in 860 or 859 B.C. by

Shalmaneser II. and again in 857 or 856 B.C. in his capital, Arzasku

(site?). [88] His cities as far as the sources of the Euphrates were

taken by the same monarch in 845 or 844 B.C.

1. Sarduris I.--Son of Lutipris. Three inscriptions (Zeitschrift für

Assyriologie, 1899, p. 315) on massive blocks of stone, forming part

of a wall which extended from the western extremity of the rock of Van

roughly in a northerly direction towards the harbour across the plain

(Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, etc., 1897,

p. 305). Appears to have been the initiator of the fortifications of

the rock of Van. Bore the title: "king of the world (Sar Kissati),

king of Nairi." Attacked about 833 B.C. by the general of Shalmaneser

II.; styled king of Urardhu in the Assyrian inscriptions.

2. Ispuinis.--His son. Several inscriptions, in which he is more

commonly associated with his son Menuas. The inscriptions are found

as far apart as the Kelishin Pass between Rowanduz and Ushnei, the

hill of Ashrut-Darga, east of the village of Salekhane, east of Van

and the Van region, and Patnotz, north of Sipan. His title is given

in the Vannic text of the Kelishin stele as: king of Nairi, king of

Suras (i.e. of northern Syria [89]), inhabiting the city of Dhuspas;

and in the inscription of Ashrut Darga as: king of Biaina, inhabiting

the city of Dhuspas. Is probably the Uspina from whom the general

of the Assyrian king Shamshi-Ramman III. (825-812 B.C.) captured

11 forts and 200 villages during his campaign against Nairi. His

newly-discovered inscription near the Tabriz gate at Van appears to

ascribe the construction of the works upon the citadel to himself,

his father Sarduris, his son Menuas and his grandson Inuspuas

(V. Anth. 1898, p. 575).

3. Menuas.--His son, associated with his father in the government,

and afterwards with his own son, Inuspuas. To this king belong the

largest number of the inscriptions yet discovered, ranging from the

Kelishin Pass and the rock of Tashtepe, near the southern shore of

Lake Urmi (Sayce, J.R.A.S. vol. xiv. p. 386; Belck, Z. Assyr. 1899,

p. 313), the latter of which commemorates his conquests in the kingdom

of Minni (V. Anth. 1894, p. 481) in the east, to Palu on the Lower

Murad in the west; and from Van and the Van regions in the south to

Hasan-Kala, near Erzerum, in the north. Perhaps his most important

conquest was that of a great portion of the valley of the Araxes on

the northern side of the Ararat system. Menuas may be regarded as the

founder of the original garden city of Van, which probably occupied

a somewhat different position than at the present day, and extended

to the borders of the lake, where it received the waters of the canal

since called the Shamiram Su, coming through Artemid--a work on a great

scale, which we now know to have been constructed principally by this

monarch, and which provided the volume of irrigation necessary for

an extensive settlement. Records his conquests. Extensively restored

Melazkert (Z. Assyr. 1892, p. 262; V. Anth. 1898, pp. 569 seq.) and

founded Arzwapert, north-east of Arjish. His title is: the great king,

the king of Biaina, inhabiting the city of Dhuspas.

4. Argistis I.--His son. Numerous inscriptions which show that he

extended the conquests of Menuas, especially towards the north. These

inscriptions are found as far north as Kanlija, near Alexandropol,

and Sarikamish, on the road from Kars to Erzerum, by which route he

probably advanced or retired from the districts north of the Ararat

system. From those at Van, which are in fact detailed annals of his

conquests, we learn that he met and overcame the armies of Assyria

on more than one occasion in the regions south-east of Lake Urmi. His

reign represents the culminating point of Vannic empire. He ascribes

to himself works upon the rock and in the city of Van; and he was

the founder of the city of Armavir in the valley of the Araxes

(V. Anth. 1896, p. 313). He bore the title of: the great king, the

king of Biaina, inhabiting the city of Dhuspas.

5. Sarduris II.--His son. Numerous inscriptions, distributed over a

large area of country, one being found in the south-east corner of

Lake Gökcheh, another (discovered by us) near the western summit of

the Bingöl Dagh, [90] and yet another as far west as the Euphrates

near Malatia in Asia Minor. The first and last record conquests in

those countries. Ascribes to himself works upon the rock and in the

city of Van, and gives a list of his conquests, including some over

the Assyrian monarch Ashur-nirari II., 754-745 B.C. (V. Anth. 1898,

pp. 570-77). But these successes were followed by disasters which

dealt a severe blow at the Vannic kingdom. With the accession of

Tiglath-Pileser III. of Assyria (745-727 B.C.) a new area is initiated

in the relations of these two great Powers of the day. The clash seems

to have come in the year 743 and in connection with the endeavour

of Tiglath-Pileser to possess himself of the strong place of Arpad

between the present towns of Aleppo and Killis, the key of northern

Syria, a country over which the Vannic kings had for several reigns

upheld pretensions. Sarduris headed the league against the Assyrians

and drew off the king from the siege of Arpad. He was, however,

signally defeated "near Kistan and Khalpi, districts of Kummukh"

(Kommagene), and pursued as far as "the bridge over the Euphrates, the

boundary of his kingdom." Subsequently, in 735 B.C., Tiglath-Pileser

carried the war into the very heart of the Vannic country, and at

length appeared before the city of Van. Sarduris was obliged to shut

himself up in the impregnable citadel, while his adversary massacred

his warriors and his people in the city at its feet, and erected a

statue of himself in front of it. He then ravaged the territory of

Sarduris over a space of some 450 miles, meeting with no opposition

anywhere. (For the sequence of these events, made known to us by the

Assyrian inscriptions, see V. Anth. 1896, pp. 321 seq., and Smith's

Assyria, London, S.P.C.K. 1897, pp. 83 seq.). Sarduris increased the

importance of the city of Armavir, and ascribes to himself works upon

the citadel and in the city of Van. Bore the title: king of kings,

king of the land of Suras, king of Biaina, inhabiting the city of

Dhuspas. Styled king of Urardhu in the Assyrian inscriptions.

6. Rusas I.--His son. The author of at least two important extant

inscriptions, that of Kölani-Girlan (Alutshalu), on the face of a

rock overlooking Lake Gökcheh, and that of Topsanä (Sidikan), in

the district of Rowanduz in Kurdistan, discovered by Rawlinson and

recently examined by Dr. Belck (Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, Berlin,

1899, pp. 99-132). The first records conquests and the restoration

of a palace; the second, which has, however, not yet been published,

conveys noteworthy facts bearing upon the relations with Assyria. We

know from the Assyrian inscriptions that the Vannic kingdom was by

no means crushed by the campaign of Tiglath-Pileser; for the son of

Sarduris, this Rusas the First, displayed great activity in inciting

the neighbouring principalities against the successor of the conqueror,

Sargon (722-705 B.C.), among which may be specially mentioned the

kingdom of Minni, south-east of Lake Urmi, and the almost impregnable

territory of Mutsatsir or Ardinis near Rowanduz. Sargon tells us

how, in 714 B.C., he penetrated into Mutsatsir, which contained a

temple of the god Khaldis, the god of the Vannic kingdom; how its

king Urzana fled, and how he plundered and burnt the city, rifled the

temple and carried off the statues of the gods. He relates that Ursa,

king of Urardhu (i.e. Rusas I.), upon hearing of this disaster to

his ally and of the carrying off of the god, committed suicide. The

contents of the inscription of Topsanä throw doubt upon this latter

statement. They are to the effect that Rusas restored Urzana to

his kingdom, led his armies as far as "the mountains of Assyria,"

and restored the offerings to Khaldis in Mutsatsir.

If, as seems probable, the Rusas of the shattered stele of Keshish

Göl near Van be this first king of that name, then we must ascribe to

this monarch the various works which are mentioned in that inscription

(Sayce, No. lxxix.), and which, as Messrs. Belck and Lehmann have

conclusively shown, should be referred to Toprak Kala, an eminence

from the plain some little distance east of the rock of Van and

close to the present garden town. These works appear to have been:

the constitution of the Keshish Göl into a reservoir, the conduct of

its waters to the Rusahina, or city of Rusas, as distinct from Dhuspas;

the laying out of this new city, with numerous vineyards and gardens,

and the building of a palace there. Rusas I. may therefore be regarded

as the author of the transference of the site of the garden town from

the south to the east of the rock of Van, where it was protected by

the heights of Toprak Kala. The necessary irrigation was drawn from

the Keshish Göl instead of or in addition to that derived from the

canal of Menuas. The change was probably made in consequence of the

destruction by Tiglath-Pileser of the old town, although he was unable

to effect the capture of the citadel or rock of Van (Z. Ethnologie,

1892, pp. 141 seq.; V. Anth. 1893, p. 220; Z. Assyr. 1894, pp. 349

seq.; Deutsche Rundschau, Christmas 1894, pp. 411 seq.; V. Anth. 1898,

p. 576; Z. Assyr. 1899, p. 320). Rusas I. is styled Ursa, king of

Urardhu, in the Assyrian inscriptions. Those of the Vannic Monarchy,

hitherto published, do not furnish a title.

Armenia, Travels and Studies (Volume 2 of 2) The Turkish Provinces · 第 4 / 28 章