Jost Gippert and Jasmine Dum-Tragut (Eds.)
Caucasian Albania
Caucasian
Albania
An International Handbook
Edited by
Jost Gippert and Jasmine Dum-Tragut
This publication is part of a project that has received funding from the European Research
Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme
(Grant agreement No. 101019006) and from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German
Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy – EXC 2176 ‘Understanding Written
Artefacts: Material, Interaction and Transmission in Manuscript Cultures’ (Project No. 390893796).
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Preface
The background of the present Handbook
In Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, the Southern Caucasus was divided
into three countries, Greater Armenia, Iberia (Eastern Georgia, Kartli) and the socalled Caucasian “Albania”. These three countries formed an ethnic, linguistic
and religious conglomeration which bordered both geographically and culturally
with South-Eastern Europe and Western Asia. Their official Christianisation began
as early as the 4th century, leaving a lasting mark on the entire region. In the
following centuries, it became a well-connected and strategically important buffer
zone for Byzantine, Persian, Arab, Turkic, and Mongol powers. And although the
borders constantly shifted, the ancient countries of the Southern Caucasus formed
a geographical and historical unity that was diverse in itself, yet sharing not only
the same history but also common cultural traits.
For both Armenians and Georgians, history and culture of their countries are
well known through their own languages, which have been written continuously
since the 4th century CE. In contrast to this, Caucasian Albania with the peoples
inhabiting it, its history and culture and, ultimately, its “disappearance” have
remained by and large obscure, due to the scarcity of autochtonous sources.
Nevertheless, interest in the ancient state of Caucasian Albania has been revived on a large scale, especially in recent years. After the Second Karabakh War
in autumn 2020 and the ceasefire agreed between Armenia, Azerbaijan and the
(internationally unrecognised) Republic of Artsakh in November 2020, massive
media attention was paid to this historical region and especially to “supposedly”
Albanian monuments such as churches and monasteries which are now under
the administrative control of Azerbaijan. In particular, the Azerbaijani government and scientists affiliated to it have most intensively promoted a theory
which, put simply, relates the history of the Azerbaijanis back to the Albanians,
thus putting the state of Azerbaijan on a similar historical footing as Armenia
and Georgia which can both demonstrate their millennia-long existence on the
basis of textual, archaeological and architectural monuments. The “Albanianising” approach, first put forward by the Soviet-Azerbaijanian historian Ziya Bunyatov in the 1950s and 60s, has now acquired new topicality by being instrumentalised in abnegating the Armenian background of the disputed territory of Karabakh, even though international scholars such as Nora Dudwick and Harun Yilmaz have argued against this theory in several academic publications since the
late 1980s, already during the outbreak of the First Karabakh War, and declared
it politically motivated, as a form of historical revisionism that is based on nationalist attitudes.
Open Access. © 2023 the author(s), published by De Gruyter.
This work is licensed
under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110794687-201
vi
Preface
Since the end of the Second Karabakh War in November 2020, the Azerbaijani
government, falling back on the “Albanianising” theory, has quickly started to
classify medieval Armenian sites in Karabakh as Albanian, even demonstrably
removing Armenian inscriptions. Armenia, in turn, refers to its strong ecclesiastical links with Caucasian Albania which are believed to have brought the country
very close to the Armenian culture. However, all this is often built upon distorted,
media-spread but not scientifically substantiated ideas about who the “Albanians”
really were, and thus on the fact that many things have for long been – and are
still being – misinterpreted, willingly or unwillingly, following various hypotheses
that are not based on up-to-date, scientifically substantiated facts. Several traditional assumptions, even though outdated and obsolete, are mixed with manipulated narratives and historical claims as well as an inconsiderate and often erroneous exploitation of still understudied, newly discovered material.
There are indeed several competing theories about what happened to the
Albanians after the Middle Ages, whether they were absorbed into the Armenian,
Georgian, Iranian or, lastly, Turkish population of the region. To shed light on this
debate, which seems to have been fought mostly on the backs of the Armenians
with their long-lasting presence, historically irrefutable, in the disputed region of
Karabakh, and on that of the Udi people who are now being talked up as the true
successors of the Caucasian Albanians, supported (if not directed) by the Azerbaijanian government in a new post-Soviet “ethnogenesis”, we deemed it overdue to
counter the (definitely not harmless) myths on Caucasian Albania that are swirling around today, with scientifically sound and proven facts. For this purpose, a
group of internationally acknowledged scholars and distinguished representatives of their scientific fields have agreed to compile the present Handbook, bringing together in a neutral way up-to-date accounts of the historical realities of Caucasian Albania, based on their own research into the textual and archaeological sources available. The Handbook thus reflects the present state of scientific knowledge
on ancient medieval Caucasian Albania, including the most recent findings.
The interdisciplinary nature of the Handbook, which spans a wide range
from historical, linguistic-philological, archaeological, church and art historical
up to ethnological and sociological contributions, warrants a comprehensive picture of Caucasian Albania and its inhabitants. It was by no means compiled to
support nationalistic or revisionist points of view but aims solely at a clear and
neutral, scientific presentation of the existing facts. It is obvious that one or the
other piece of the “puzzle” that Caucasian Albania presents is still missing if we
intend to provide a complete, truly coherent and yet scientifically sound image.
No doubt, much more research needs to be undertaken in this area in order to
get rid of insubstantial national, political and territorial disputes and claims. But
even now we may underline an important result of this Handbook, which lies so
Preface
vii
to say in the heart of the puzzle: it is clear now that Armenians, Georgians, and
a multitude of Caucasian and other peoples have lived together on the territory
of ancient and medieval Caucasian Albania since Antiquity, leaving their traces
in the history, culture and language of Caucasian Albania as one of the ancient
states of the Southern Caucasus.
Content and contributors
All in all, the Handbook comprises 16 Chapters contributed by 15 different authors. In Chapter 1 (Caucasian Albania in Greek and Latin Sources), Marco Bais,
Faculty member of the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome as an expert of Oriental Ecclesiastical Sciences, evaluates with a special focus on the methodology of
historical research the information on Albania and the Albanians that is provided
by authors of Classical Antiquity, thus illustrating the oldest witnesses of the country that are known. In Chapter 2 (Caucasian Albania in Medieval Armenian Sources), Jasmine Dum-Tragut, specialist for Armenian studies, linguistics and equine
sciences at the Center for the Study of the Christian East, Paris-Lodron University
in Salzburg, and Jost Gippert, comparative linguist and Caucasiologist now working at the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures, University of Hamburg,
provide an overview of the historiographical accounts of Albania in Armenian
language, covering the period from the 5th to the 13th century; the Chapter largely
builds upon previous work by Zaza Aleksidze, who unfortunately did not live to
see the present volume published, and Jean-Pierre Mahé, whose readiness to support the Handbook is greatly acknowledged.
The following three Chapters are devoted to the written heritage of the Albanian language. In Chapter 3 (The Textual Heritage of Caucasian Albanian), Jost
Gippert summarises the present knowledge on the textual remains in Albanian,
i.e., the fragments of Bible translation that were found in palimpsest manuscripts
with Georgian overwriting in St Catherine’s monastery on Mt Sinai, as well as
the few inscriptions that have been detected so far. Chapter 4 (The Language of
the Caucasian Albanians), co-authored by Jost Gippert and the late Wolfgang
Schulze, up to his untimely decease in April 2020 teaching as a linguist at the
universities of Munich and Banská Bystrica and one of the leading specialists of
East Caucasian languages, provides a comprehensive description of the Albanian
language as preserved in the textual witnesses, taking into account the many
amendments that have become possible by the utilisation of new imaging
methods in analysing the palimpsests. Chapter 5 (Caucasian Albanian and Modern
Udi), again co-authored by Wolfgang Schulze and Jost Gippert, outlines the mutual relationship of the Albanian language and that of the Udi people of today,
Preface
ix
ty, and the Institute for Archaeology and Ethnography, National Academy of Sciences, Yerevan, gives a comprehensive account of the present state of the excavations undertaken at the site of Tigranakert in Northeast Karabakh, with special
emphasis on the reforms of the Albanian king Vachagan III manifesting themselves there.
The final five Chapters of the Handbook are devoted to ethnic, religious and
social issues of Caucasian Albania, from Late Antiquity up to the present day. In
Chapter 12 (The Ethnic Situation in Antique and Medieval Caucasian Albania),
Aleksan Hakobyan, renowned historian specialised on the Christian East at the
Institute of Oriental Studies of the National Academy of Sciences, Yerevan, examines the question whether the late antique state of Albania was ethnically homogeneous and traces the emergence of an Albanian “meta-ethnos” through the centuries. Chapter 13 (The Rebels of Early Abbasid Albania) by Alison Vacca, historian
of early Islam working on the caliphal provinces Armenia and Caucasian Albania
at Columbia University in the City of New York, analyses the Arabic sources concerning rebellions in and around Albania during the Abbasid era (c. 566–809 CE)
and the information these sources provide as to the inhabitants of the Caucasian
provinces under Arab rule and their relation to the Caliphate. In Chapter 14 (“You
say Albanian, I say Armenian”: Discourses of Ethnicity and Power Around an
Albanian King of Armenia), Sergio La Porta, specialist on Near Eastern Languages and Civilisation in the Armenian Studies Program of California State University, Fresno, investigates the identity and positionality of a local king of the
11th century named Senekerim and ideologies of kinship manifesting themselves
in contemporary and later discourses. In Chapter 15 (Between the Planes and the
Mountains: the Albanian-Armenian Marches in the 12th Century and David of
Gandzak), Igor Dorfmann-Lazarev studies the relation of Christian and Muslim
inhabitants of the city of Ganja/Gandzak during the rule of the Kurdish Shaddadids and the first decades of the Turkic colonisation of the south-eastern Caucasus,
with a focus on the “Admonitory Exhortations” of the Christian Armenian author
David son of Alavik (c. 1065–1140) which mirror this relation. In an appended
Chapter (15A: The Gate of Ganja), Jost Gippert provides a short account of the
iron gate of Gandzak which was transferred as booty to Georgia by king Demetre
after capturing the city in 1139. Lastly, Chapter 16 (Reverse Engineering: A StateCreated “Albanian Apostolic Church”) by Hratch Tchilingirian, researcher on
the sociology of minorities and inter-ethnic conflicts in the Caucasus at the Oriental Institute of the University of Oxford, examines the way how Azerbaijan is
constructing an “Albanian Apostolic” or “Udi Orthodox Church” as part of a new
narrative that connects the modern state to ancient peoples, cultures and early
Christianity in the Caucasus.
x
Preface
Structural preliminaries
Due to its broad historical scope, the Handbook deals with original sources in
various languages and scripts, from (Caucasian) Albanian via Arabic, Armenian,
Georgian, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Middle Persian, Parthian, and Russian up to Syriac. Given the chaos of different systems of transcription that are spread over the
scholarly literature, we decided to use a simplified English transcription throughout the main text of the Handbook, thus rendering it as easily readable as possible. This accounts for all kinds of names and terms which are known from, or
identifiable via, English reference works, but also for author’s names, which are
resolved in their original spelling in the bibliographical references. Non-Latin
scripts are usually only reproduced as such in quotations from original texts; the
same is true for scientific transcription systems, which are here and there used
in rendering names and special terms, especially when the actual sounding is
thematised. In these cases, the transcription systems are those applied in the first
edition of the Albanian palimpsests of Mt Sinai (Gippert et al. 2008) for Caucasian
languages, Hübschmann-Benveniste for Armenian, DIN for Arabic, and Orientalists’ systems for other languages; Greek remains untranscribed.
To help our readers cope with the wide range of publications referred to,
many of which are hard to find in public or scientific libraries, we have added
links to online representations (mostly in PDF format) wherever possible. In some
cases, access will be limited to certain persons or institutions, and sometimes it
will depend on fees; we hope that this will not result in severe problems for
anybody. We have added links to Google Books only if it provides at least partial
access to the contents of a given book or source, and we have refrained from
linking to booksellers as we do not regard commercial support as our task. Publications that are only available online are labelled as such.
Acknowledgements
As editors, we are extremely grateful to the contributors of the Handbook who,
alongside their many other duties, were ready to provide their Chapters in a
remarkably short period of time so that the volume can now go into the press
just one and a half year after the first online meeting of its participants. Beyond
the authors of the Chapters, we wish to express our thanks to several other colleagues who have supported the publication with help and advice. Besides the
late Zaza Aleksidze and Jean-Pierre Mahé, who generously let us make use of
their introduction to the first edition of the Albanian palimpsests, this is true for
the team of the Sinai Palimpsests Project (Claudia Rapp, Michael Phelps, Keith
Preface
xi
Knox, Robert Easton and various other members of the Early Manuscripts Electronic Library, EMEL, as well as Dawn Childress and other members of the staff
of the library of the University of California at Los Angeles, UCLA), who made
excellent multispectral and transmissive light images available and thus facilitated a thorough re-analysis of the only manuscript remnants of the Albanian language. We are further grateful to many people who generously shared photographs and drawings with us; this is true, first of all, for the participants of the
Artsakh archaeological expedition of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, National Academy of Sciences, Republic of Armenia, but also for Arshak
Banouchyan, Andranik Kekishyan, Timur Maisak, Slava Sargsyan, Jon Seligman,
Nikolaus von Twickel, and several online users who share their images via the
internet. Our thanks are also due to a lot of librarians world-wide who undertook
the efforts of digitising manuscripts, microfilms, and ancient and rare books
which we needed for our research; in place of all, let us name the staff of the
Matenadaran (Research Institute of Ancient Manuscripts named after Mesrop
Mashtots) and the Tache and Tamar Manoukian Library of the Mother See of
St Ejmiatsin in Armenia, and Emzar Jgerenaia and Nineli Mikadze of the National
Parliament Library of Georgia as well as Maia Machavariani and Temo Jojua of
the Korneli Kekelidze Georgian National Centre of Manuscripts, Tbilisi, who
helped us searching for old journals and manuscripts and identifying unknown
authors.
Peculiar thanks are due to the publishing house of de Gruyter, Berlin, who
kindly accepted this Handbook for their “Reference” series, and especially to Birgit Sievert and Barbara Karlson, who accompanied us with help and advice during its preparation. Lastly, we greatly acknowledge the support by the European
Research Council (ERC) and the German Research Foundation (DFG) who facilitated the preparation and Open Access publication of this Handbook by generous
grants within the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and Germany’s Excellence Strategy, and the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Culture of the University of Hamburg for providing the necessary infrastructure.
Hamburg, 28. 2. 2023
Jost Gippert
Salzburg, 28. 2. 2023
Jasmine Dum-Tragut
Contents
Preface
v
I
Caucasian Albania in Foreign Sources
1
Marco Bais
Caucasian Albania in Greek and Latin Sources
2
3
Jasmine Dum-Tragut and Jost Gippert
Caucasian Albania in Medieval Armenian Sources
33
(5th–13th Centuries)
II The Heritage of Caucasian Albanian
3
Jost Gippert
The Textual Heritage of Caucasian Albanian
4
Jost Gippert and Wolfgang Schulze†
The Language of the Caucasian Albanians
5
Wolfgang Schulze† and Jost Gippert
Caucasian Albanian and Modern Udi
Igor Dorfmann-Lazarev
5A The Udis’ Petition to Tsar Peter
95
167
231
261
III The Caucasian Albanian Church
6
7
Charles Renoux
Albanians, Armenians and Georgians: a Common Liturgy
267
Jasmine Dum-Tragut
One or two? On Christological and Hierarchical Disputes and the
285
Development of the “Church of Albania” (4th–8th centuries)
xiv
Contents
Armenuhi Drost-Abgaryan
333
7A The Holy Covenant
8
Yana Tchekhanovets
Albanians in the Holy Land – Absence of Archaeological Evidence
337
or Evidence of Absence?
IV Architecture and Archaeology
9
Armen Kazaryan
Urban Planning and Architecture of Caucasian Albania. Main Monuments
353
and Trends of Development
Patrick Donabédian
10 The Ensemble of the “Seven Churches” – an Ecumenical Monastery Ahead
387
of Time?
Hamlet Petrosyan
11 Tigranakert in Artsakh
433
V Ethnic, Religious and Social Issues
Aleksan Hakobyan
12 The Ethnic Situation in Antique and Medieval Caucasian Albania
Alison M. Vacca
13 The Rebels of Early Abbasid Albania
475
489
Sergio La Porta
14 “You say Albanian, I say Armenian”: Discourses of Ethnicity and Power
515
Around an Albanian King of Armenia
Igor Dorfmann-Lazarev
15 Between the Planes and the Mountains: the Albanian-Armenian Marches
537
in the 12th Century and David of Gandzak (c. 1065–1140)
Jost Gippert
15A The Gate of Ganja
571
Contents
Hratch Tchilingirian
16 Reverse Engineering: A State-Created “Albanian Apostolic Church”
General References
611
675
Indexes
675
1 Persons (individuals and groups)
689
2 Place Names
698
3 Manuscripts and Inscriptions
698
3.1 Manuscripts by designation
699
3.2 Manuscripts by repository
700
3.3 Inscriptions
701
4 Source Texts
701
4.1 Bible
704
4.2 Other texts
706
5 Terms
706
5.1 Linguistic terms
710
5.2 Other terms
715
6 Words
715
6.1 Albanian
725
6.2 Armenian
727
6.3 Georgian
728
6.4 Greek
729
6.5 Iranian languages
730
6.6 Latin
730
6.7 Russian
730
6.8 Semitic languages
731
6.9 Turkic languages
731
6.10 Udi (and other Lezgic languages)
xv
581
Yana Tchekhanovets
8 Albanians in the Holy Land – Absence
of Archaeological Evidence or Evidence
of Absence?
Abstract: The existence of Albanian institutions in Jerusalem during the Late
Byzantine – Early Islamic periods is attested by two historical texts: the list of
Anastas Vardapet, mentioning four monasteries that belong to the community,
and The History of the Country of the Albanians by Movses Daskhurantsi (or Kałankatuatsi), which contains a list of ten Jerusalemite monasteries that belong to
the Albanians. The discovery and decipherment of the Albanian palimpsests of
the collection of St Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai open a new chapter in
the study of the Albanian community of the Holy Land. Apart from the Sinaitic
manuscripts, the Caucasian Albanians left no material traces in the Holy Land,
and no archaeological finds clearly associated with Caucasian Albanians were
discovered. However, the accurate analysis of archaeological evidence may shed
light on the obscure history of the Albanians in the Holy Land and testify to the
relations between the Churches of the three Caucasian countries.
1 Introduction
Of all the national communities of Byzantine Palestine,1 the Caucasian Albanians
remain the most mysterious group, and their history in the region is obscure.
Their presence is unattested in the large corpus of Palestinian hagiographies,
numerous pilgrims’ accounts, or other literature. During the Late Byzantine –
Early Islamic periods, Albanian institutions in Jerusalem are attested only by two
historical texts of Caucasian origin, written in the Armenian language: the list of
Armenian monasteries by Anastas Vardapet, and The History of the Country of
the Albanians by Movses Daskhurantsi (or Kałankatuatsi). The only clear material
evidence of the Albanian monastic presence in the region are the palimpsests
discovered in St. Catherine’s Monastery on the Sinai.
1 Di Segni and Tsafrir (2012).
Open Access. © 2023 the author(s), published by De Gruyter.
This work is licensed
under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110794687-010
338
Yana Tchekhanovets
2 Manuscripts
The discovery of a forgotten cellar room in St Catherine’s Monastery on the Sinai
in 1975 brought to light, inter alia, an extensive collection of ancient Georgian
manuscripts.2 Especially significant was the discovery of the Albanian palimpsests, the only surviving specimens of the Albanian literary school, and the sole
material evidence to the presence of this national community in the Holy Land.
The two codices found (Sin. georg. NF 13 and NF 55) contained Georgian texts
from the 10th century, with Albanian discovered in the under-writing, the early
layer of the manuscripts. The decipherment of the Caucasian Albanian texts, started by Zaza Aleksidze in 1998 and proceeded by an international group of scholars,
showed that the early-layer texts contained fragments of the Gospel of John and
a Lectionary.3 The codicological and palaeographical development of the manuscripts is exceptionally high and shows a well-advanced system of manuscript
writing – liturgical comments written in small letters on the manuscript margins,
wide use of abbreviations, etc.
The palimpsest studies per se and a recently proposed numismatic perspective4 point towards the independent literary work of the Albanian school and
date the manuscripts to the period between the beginning of the 6th century and
the beginning of the 10th century. It is not certain whether the manuscripts were
produced in the Sinai or were brought there with other books from the Monastery of St Sabas or another Palestinian scribal center during the turmoil and
insecurity of the 8th–9th centuries.5 It is also impossible to establish who could
have been responsible for such a hypothetical transfer – Albanian monks moving
from Palestine to Sinai or the new owners of the books, the Georgians.
In any event, the palimpsests attest to the existence of a significant and educated Albanian monastic community in the country, while only scarce information regarding the monastic movement in Albania itself can be gathered from the
History of the Country of the Albanians.6 One may assume that similar to the
cases of Armenia and Georgia, monasticism came to Caucasian Albania from the
East, from Syria and Palestine.7
2 Catalogued in Aleksidze et al. (2005).
3 Aleksidze and Mahé (2001); Gippert and Schulze (2007); Gippert et al. (2008); Gippert (2012b;
2015); for further information see Chapter 3 of this Handbook (Gippert).
4 Akopyan (2021a).
5 Patrich (2011); Schick (1995).
6 Book I, chapter 14 (Arakelyan 1983: 40; Dowsett 1961a: 24).
7 Garsoïan (2005–2007: 188); Haas (2009); Martin-Hisard (1985–1986).
Albanians in the Holy Land
339
3 The Albanian monasteries in Jerusalem
Two ancient texts mention the monastic presence of Caucasian Albanians in Jerusalem. The first is the List of Armenian Monasteries, traditionally attributed to
Anastas Vardapet, who came to the Holy City to prepare the visit of his country’s
rulers.8 This document, written in Armenian, survived only in later copies – the
earliest known version is dated to the 16th century – and can hardly be considered
reliable. However, at its core, it seems to retain a faithful rendition of an earlier
text that is now lost, which dates to the Early Islamic period or even slightly
earlier.9 Anastas Vardapet lists all the major and secondary Christian sanctuaries
of Jerusalem as being Armenian and states whether they remained Armenian or
were transferred to foreign hands. The latter includes four Albanian monasteries
and one Georgian.
The list comprises all the churches of Jerusalem and its vicinity, including
the Nativity and Holy Sepulchre, not only the Armenian ones. Nevertheless, the
list of the holy places itself, regardless of the declared ownership, can be relevant,
considering the date of its core. Several churches listed by Anastas Vardapet such
as the Lamentation of St Peter, the Forty Saints (the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste?),
St John the Baptist on the Mount of Olives and others are known from various
Byzantine and Early Islamic sources, but not from Medieval ones. All were destroyed or abandoned during the early period of the Arab rule, most probably
during the Abbasid period, i.e. in the 8th–9th centuries.10 The numerous repetitions of the sentence “now occupied by tačiks” show that the author of the original document visited Jerusalem sometime after the Arab conquest of the city in
638, but before the abandonment or destruction of the mentioned churches. As
it seems, the document’s original core must reflect the situation of the Holy City
in the Early Islamic period. It is worth noting that despite the Medieval location
of the Armenian monasteries on Mt Zion, the author of the list describes them as
located on the Mount of Olives and in the northern part of Jerusalem, in the
locations where Armenian structures dated to the Byzantine period were later
discovered in archaeological excavations.11
8 Sanjian (1969); Terian (2016).
9 Sanjian (1969: 266); Terian (2016) dates the original core of the document to the 6th century.
10 Schick (1995: 337, 348, 356).
11 I am grateful to Michael E. Stone for this important remark regarding the reliability of the
source. For Armenian monastic structures discovered in Jerusalem, see Stone and Amit (1997);
Amit and Wolff (2000); Stone (2002); Re’em et al. (2021); for a summary of the archaeological
evidence see Tchekhanovets (2018: 41–125).
340
Yana Tchekhanovets
The source mentions four monasteries that belong to the Albanian community, and one is particularly named:
– The monastery of Pand, dedicated to St Karapet [i.e. St John the Baptist], is
located to the east on the Mount of Olives, which to date is owned by [Caucasian] Albanians; it too was built by royal expense, and named after the Holy
Cathedral in the city of Vagharshapat.12
– Three other [Caucasian] Albanian monasteries, now occupied by tačiks.13
The second text testifying to Albanian presence in Jerusalem is the History of the
Country of the Albanians by Movses Daskhurantsi, the only extant historical
chronicle concerning the Albanians, probably compiled in the 10th century by an
Armenian or by an Albanian who preferred to write in the Armenian language.14
The final chapter of the compilation15 contains a list of ten Jerusalemite monasteries that belong to the Caucasian Albanians according to the author. One of the
monasteries in this list, the monastery of Pand, also appears in the list of Anastas
Vardapet. Possibly, both texts derive from an unknown common source.16
The monasteries mentioned in the text are the monastery of Pand, to the east
of the Mount of Olives; the monastery of Mruva, named after the Forty Martyrs,
not far away from the Pand monastery; the monastery of Mežay, named after the
Forty Saints; the monastery of Kałankatuykʿ;17 the monastery of Artsakh, to the
south of St Stephen; the monastery of Amaras, named after St Gregory;18 and the
monastery of Partaw, dedicated to St Mary, Mother of God, near the Tower of
David: “half [of it] is held by a woman named Miriam from Šamkʿor,19 and half
by the Arabs”. Another monastery is located “in the middle of the sūq”, and three
more in unknown places, all “seized by Arabs”.20
A few locations given in the text are directing towards well-known monastic
agglomerations of Byzantine Jerusalem: the Mount of Olives, the Tower of David,
and the environs of the Church of St Stephen.
12 Translation by Sanjian (1969: 276). Vagharshapat, today Ejmiatsin, is the spiritual centre of
the Armenians and the See of the Catholicos, the head of the Armenian Church. However, the
cathedral in Vagharshapat is dedicated to the Holy Mother of God, not to St John the Baptist.
13 Translation by Sanjian (1969: 277).
14 Howard-Johnston (2020); for the historiographic context see Rapp (2020).
15 Book II, chapter 52 (Arakelyan 1983: 285–286; Dowsett 1961a: 184–185).
16 Sanjian (1969: 286–287).
17 Kałankatuykʿ is located in the Utik region, on the borders of ancient Albania.
18 Amaras is located in Artsakh (Mountain-Karabakh region; 39°41′2.4″ N, 47°3′25.2″ E).
19 Shamkhor (Şǝmkir) is located near the border between modern Georgia and Azerbaijan, not
far away from the monastery of David Gareja (40°50′ N, 46°1′25″ E).
20 Translations by Dowsett (1961a: 185).
Albanians in the Holy Land
341
3.1 The Mount of Olives
The Mount of Olives to the east of the city becomes the central Christian location
of Jerusalem already during the 4th century, with the foundation of the churches
of Eleona and the Ascension; a few dozens of churches and monasteries were
established at the site during the Byzantine period.21 It is tempting to identify the
Albanian monastery of Pand dedicated to St Karapet with the monastery of
St John the Baptist, established at the end of the 4th century by a monk named
Innocent and mentioned under various names in numerous Byzantine sources.22
According to J. T. Milik, the remains of this monastery were discovered at the plot
of the Russian convent of the Ascension, which was excavated in the 19th century.
Nevertheless, the identification of the site with the ancient monastery of St John
can be disputed because of the topographical coordination given by the sources
as “to the east of the Mount of Olives”, whereas the Russian site is actually located
on the summit, closer to the western slope of the mountain. The Greek and Armenian epigraphic evidence discovered at the site provides no connection to St John
and tends to testify to the existence of a nunnery.23 The name of the monastery
is not echoed in Jerusalem’s sacral topography of the Byzantine period; perhaps
one should look for its meaning in the Caucasus region: it was proposed by M. Hajiev that the monastery holds the name of the Albanian catholicos Pand / Pant.24
3.2 The Tower of David
The Tower of David, the ancient citadel of Jerusalem, is located in the western
part of the city, near Jaffa Gate. During the Byzantine period, the area between
the citadel and Mt Zion, the modern Armenian Quarter of the Old City, was occupied by numerous monastic institutions. This was probably the last intramural
area of Byzantine Jerusalem that was still available for large-scale construction,
and was developed in the 5th–6th centuries under ecclesiastical patronage. Numerous institutions – churches, monasteries, and pilgrim hospices – which were built
here are known from literary sources.25 However, the archaeological evidence for
the area from the Byzantine period is scarce, restricted to the Byzantine founda-
21
22
23
24
25
For archaeological research see Corbo (1965); Tsafrir (1999: 331–336).
Milik (1960: 562–563, no. 34; 1960–1961: 184, no. 24).
Tchekhanovets (2018: 227–228).
Hajiev (2004; 2021a).
For an overview see Tsafrir (2013: 255–256).
342
Yana Tchekhanovets
tions of the Armenian Monastery of Ss James26 and the remains of another
church, dated to the 5th century and identified by the excavators with the nunnery of Bassa known from Byzantine sources.27 Recently, the remains of an additional ecclesiastic complex dated to the Byzantine period were revealed between
the Citadel and Mt Zion, where a large structure decorated with mosaic floors
was partially excavated.28 The sparse Byzantine remains discovered on Mt Zion
and in the area between its sanctuaries and the Tower of David preserve no
material evidence that could be clearly identified with the monastery of Partaw
(see also below).
3.3 St Stephen
Two ancient churches dedicated to St Stephen are known from Byzantine Jerusalem: the large basilica containing the remains of the saint, to the north of the city
walls,29 and an additional church on the traditional place of his martyrdom, to
the east of the city walls and St Stephen’s Gate. The location of the Albanian monastery to the north of the city is very plausible: a large extramural agglomeration of
monastic institutions with pilgrims’ facilities was discovered here, containing
among others also the Armenian monastery.30 Possibly, the monastery of Artsakh
located “south of St Stephen”, i.e. closer to the city walls, was placed somewhere
within this sizeable monastic agglomeration, the largest of its kind in Byzantine
Jerusalem and still not fully exposed. According to the results of the excavations,
the extramural monastic complex was established during the 5th–6th centuries
and was finally abandoned during the Abbasid period, in the 8th–9th centuries.
Unfortunately, the available archaeological evidence gives no possibility to identify the monastery of Artsakh with any discovered ancient site within the large
monastic quarter.
Most of the monasteries in the list cannot be identified today, but it is clear
that they were commonly known according to the origins of their builders: the
toponyms point towards the ancient Christian centres of the Caucasus, Artsakh,
Amaras, Kałankatuykʿ, Shamkhor, all within the limits of Caucasian Albania or
close to its borders.
26
27
28
29
30
Tchekhanovets and Berjekian (2017).
Tushingham (1985: 65–104).
Avner and Ghazarian (2021: 213).
Vincent and Abel (1922: 766–804).
Amit and Wolff (2000); Stone (2002).
Albanians in the Holy Land
343
In addition to the information regarding the monastic institutions, the chronicle of Movses Daskhurantsi31 also presents evidence for the pilgrimage of Caucasian Albanians and describes the journey of a monk named Mkhitar and his two
companions from Artsakh to Jerusalem, where they receive relics of St George
and St Stephen. Three years later, the journey was repeated by another clergyman
from Artsakh, Joseph, who hoped to bring home with him the relics of St John
the Baptist but came back disappointed, for “all the people of Jerusalem were
affected by the contagion of Chalcedon”.32
4 The inscription from Umm Leisun
Of particular interest for the study of Caucasian Albanians in Jerusalem is a
Georgian burial inscription, discovered in the excavations in the village of Umm
Leisun, in the south-western suburbs of the modern city. A small rural Georgian
monastery from the Byzantine period can be classified as an additional link in
the chain of Byzantine cenobitic monasteries built along the road leading from
Jerusalem to Bethlehem and the Monastery of St Sabas.33 After discovering a
Georgian funerary inscription at the site, the excavations were continued in cooperation with a group of Georgian scholars headed by I. Gagoshidze.34 The excavation exposed a modest rural monastic settlement, measuring 70 × 40 m, arranged
around a central courtyard, with various service rooms, cisterns, and a small
chapel, all dated by ceramic and other finds to the 6th–8th centuries.
Under the monastery, two well-preserved burial vaults were found. The
northern crypt was cut into the bedrock and built of hewn ashlar blocks and
preserved 24 burials; of the securely identified individuals, most were adult
males. The main tomb, settled in a niche in the western end of the crypt, contained the remains of an elderly man. The tomb was covered with a stone slab,
bearing a Georgian inscription in ancient asomtavruli script, dated by G. Gagoshidze to the 5th–6th centuries; it reads (cf. Fig. 1):35
31
32
33
34
35
Book II, chapter 50 (Arakelyan 1983: 280–282; Dowsett 1961a: 181–183).
Stone (1986: 103).
Seligman and Abu Raya (2002). The site is situated at 31°44′24″ N, 35°14′32″ E.
Seligman (2015: 177).
Gagoshidze (2015: 181).
344
Yana Tchekhanovets
ܰܽܰ ܽݎܹܼ݊ܬܷܬ
ܴܹܼݏܹ݀ ܸܰܬ
ܾܹܹܴܺܵܽܺܰ ܱܶܰܬ
ܴܱܼܽܽܰܳܬ݁ ݎܬ
ܴܶܽ ݎܬ+
“This is the grave of Iohane
Ese samarxoy
Iohane Powr
ṭavel eṗisḳoṗo
sisay kartve
lisay +
bishop of Purtavi, a Kartvelian.”
Fig. 1: The Old Georgian Inscription of Umm Leisun.
The tomb of bishop Iohane is situated at the most prestigious place in the burial
crypt. It was proposed that he was the founder of the monastery of Umm Leisun
or played some other important role in the life of the Georgian community, in
the Holy Land, or outside its borders.36
However, the deceased bishop’s name and his seat, Purtavi, cannot be correlated with any known personalities and toponyms. The use of the word “Kartvelian”, meaning “a person from Kartli” or Eastern Georgia, was a great surprise to
Georgian scholars. From the 7 th century on, the word “Kartvelian” became a selfdefining national term in the Georgian language, but nothing was known about
its use in earlier periods. It is generally agreed that the inscription from Umm
Leisun is the earliest known example of this term in Georgian epigraphy. The
need for a national definition seems unclear since the text itself is written in
Georgian. An interpretation proposing that the name Purtavi has mixed Semitic
and Georgian roots and derives from the Aramaic pwrta or the Hebrew pwra37
seems unconvincing. Besides, if that were true, it would mean that Purtavi is the
original name of the Umm Leisun monastery, yet nothing is known of such a
bishopric seat in Byzantine Palestine.
A possible interpretation of the inscription from Umm Leisun and the complex as a whole is that its origin should be sought in the mysterious “Purtavi”. It
36 Gagoshidze (2015); Mgaloblishvili (2015).
37 Mgaloblishvili (2015: 189).
Albanians in the Holy Land
345
is possible to assume that the name of the bishopric seat is derived from the
toponym Partaw, once an important political and ecclesiastic center of Caucasian
Albania, today the regional center Barda in north-west Azerbaijan.38 The city of
Partaw was established in the 4th century, and a hundred years later, during the
reign of King Vache II (459–481), it became the country’s capital. For the following
centuries, the bishop of Partaw was also the head of the Albanian Church or
catholicos. The city name is mentioned in the list of the monasteries owned by
Caucasian Albanians in Jerusalem: the monastery near the Tower of David, dedicated to St Mary Mother of God, is called Partaw.39 However, as G. Gagoshidze
pointed out, in Georgian texts the city of Partaw is known exclusevely as Bardavi,
starting from Leonti Mroveli’s compilation of the Georgian chronicle Kartlis
Tskhovreba (11th c.).40 Nevertheless the meaning of the Umm Leisun text becomes
clearer if “the bishop of Purtavi” is interpreted as “the bishop of Partaw”, and
Kartveli not as “Georgian” but as “from Kartli”. The person buried in the vicinity
of Jerusalem was a native of the Kartli kingdom but had served far away from
his country, in Albania. Otherwise, why would the Georgian inscription on the
gravestone stress his Georgian origin?
The bishop of Partaw served at the same time as the head of the Albanian
church. This can explain the inordinately large number of deceased buried in the
monastery crypt: Iohane, bishop of Purtavi, was an important figure, revered by
his community, and its members desired to be buried next to their shepherd.41
In the list of the Catholicoi of the Albanian church, the name of Iohane appears
twice.42 The first Iohane led the church in the 4th century, before transferring the
capital to Partaw. The second was head of the church in the years 644–671. These
dates correspond to the archaeological dating of the Umm Leisun complex, but it
seems too early to confirm this personal identification. The sources give no information regarding pilgrimage, migration, or death in the Holy Land of any of the
Albanian Catholicoi. The bishop buried in Umm Leisun could be one of the active
leaders of church hierarchy during the unity of the Caucasian Churches or, on the
contrary, one of the schismatics who escaped to Palestine from the endless tangled
Caucasian conflicts. These are all questions that remain open for future studies,
but there is no doubt that the archaeological research of the Holy Land has implications beyond the confines of the region.
38 Geyushev (1971); Nuriev and Wordsworth (2020). Cf. Chapter 9 of this Handbook (Kazaryan),
2.3.2 for details as to Partaw.
39 Dowsett (1961a: 51).
40 For discussion and expanded bibliography, see Gagoshidze (2022: 93–94).
41 For comparison see Goldfus (1997: 241–243).
42 Book I, chapter 15 (Arakelyan 1983: 41–42; Dowsett 1961a: 24).
346
Yana Tchekhanovets
5 Conclusions
Summarising the evidence of the Albanian presence in the monastic circles of
the Byzantine Holy Land, it is worth noting that, in fact, the history of this community is only known through Armenian and Georgian media:
– the list of the Albanian monasteries as preserved in the Armenian text of
Anastas Vardapet and in the chronicle of Movses Daskhurantsi, both existing
only in Armenian
– the institutions in the above-mentioned lists appearing alternatively as Albanian or Armenian monasteries – probably ownership had passed from one
to the other by then
– the only known Albanian literary fragments with extracts of Bible translation
being preserved under a layer of Georgian text
– additional information regarding the Albanians found in the Georgian epitaph of bishop Iohane from Umm Leisun.
Although fragmentary and sometimes circumstantial, this combined evidence
may testify to close ties between the Caucasian communities in the Holy Land.43
Back home, such connections are well attested, both in historical documents and
in epigraphic evidence.
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Picture credits
Figure 1: Photograph Jon Seligman, 2015.