Monitoring of the border monuments of the Republic of Armenia > The Cemetery of Khnatsakh

The Cemetery of Khnatsakh

Location

The Khnatsakh village is situated in the Syunik region of the Republic of Armenia, approximately 109 km from the regional center of Kapan, 17 km from the center of the enlarged community of Tegh village, and 28 km from the city of Goris. It is 1380 meters above sea level.

Among the village’s numerous monuments is a medieval section of its cemetery (Fig. 1).

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Fig. 1 A section of the cemetery, photo by the Monumentwatch team.

Historical overview

According to Stepanos Orbelyan, the village of Khnatsakh was considered part of the Haband province and was listed in the tax records with a levy of 20 units (Orbelian 1910, 399).

During the 15th to 18th centuries, the Kashatagh principality flourished as a predominantly Armenian-inhabited, semi-independent entity. Its administrative centers were the settlements of Kashatagh and Khnatsakh, governed by the Melik-Haykazian princely family. This princely family traced its lineage back to Prince Haykaz, a descendant of the Khalgbakian-Proshyan princely family, as documented in historical sources from the 15th to 17th centuries (Hovsepyan, 1928, 232).

The role of Khnatsakh in Syunik increased notably during the 16th century, when Melik Hakhnazar, son of Melik Haykaz, relocated the center of the melikdom from Kashatagh town to Khnatsakh and constructed a new mansion (Hasratyan 1985, 158).

Numerous tombstones and khachkars, dating back to the 12th-20th centuries, have been preserved in the cemetery of the Melik-residence village(Fig. 2).

Fig. 2 The general view of the Khnatsakh cemetery, photo from Google Earth.

Architectural-Compositional Examination

The medieval cemetery is situated in the southwestern part of Khnatsakh village and continues to be used today. The historical portion occupies approximately 1.4 hectares in the eastern section of the broader cemetery complex, where traces of medieval paved burials can still be observed within the soil layer (Fig. 3).

Within the cemetery grounds, there are nine khachkars recognized as individual monuments, some bearing inscriptions (Fig. 4). Among the khachkars dating from the 12th–13th centuries, the one from 1256 is particularly noteworthy (Khurshudean 2023, 224, fig. 5). Notably, this khachkar is carved on a piled stone dating to the Bronze–Iron Age (Avetisyan, Gnuni, Mkrtchyan, Bobokhyan 2023, 201, 202, 204, fig. 6).

 

Fig. 3 The burials visible in the soil layer section, photo by the Monumentwatch team.

Fig. 5 The front side of the khachkar with the inscription of 1256, photo by the Monumentwatch team.

Fig. 4 A section of the cemetery's khachkars, photo by the Monumentwatch team.

Fig. 6 The khachkar with the inscription of 1256, from the back, photo by the Monumentwatch team.

Among the khachkars dating to the 17th century, the piece from 1652 is particularly noteworthy due to its lengthy inscription, which reads: “I, Haykaz, and my mother, Nazlukhan, erected this holy cross in 1110 (1652) to save the soul of Khatunakh, who was the wife of an ishkhan named Oglan-Keshish” (Khurshudyan 2023, 223, fig. 7).

Fig. 7 The khachkar with the inscription from 1652, photo by the Monumentwatch team.

Bibliographic examination

The inscriptions found on the khachkars of the Khnatsakh cemetery have been documented and examined by the lithographer S. Khurshudyan in his article “The Historical and Cultural Heritage of Khnatsakh” (Khurshudyan 2023).

The condition following the Azerbaijani aggression in 2020-2022

Following the 44-day Artsakh war and the resulting changes in the border, the Khnatsakh cemetery now lies only 1.05 kilometers from the border.

Bibliography

  1. Avetisyan, Gnuni, Mkrtchyan, Bobokhyan 2023 - Avetisyan A., Gnuni A., Mkrtchyan L., Bobokhyan A., "Menhir Stones" of Ancient Armenia, Bulletin of Social Sciences, Yerevan.
  2. Khurshudean 2023 - Khurshudean A., Historical and cultural heritage of Khnatsakh, "Zion", No. 4-7, Jerusalem.
  3. Hasratyan 1985 - Hasratyan M., Historical-archaeological studies, Yerevan.
  4. Hovsepyan 1928 - Hovsepyan G., Khagbakyans or Proshyans in the history of Armenia, part A, Vagharshapat.
  5. Orbelian 1910 - Stepanos Orbelian, History of the Province of Syunik, Tiflis.