Cemetery :: ARMENIAN HISTORICAL MONUMENTS

Cemetery

Iran / Western Atrpatakan / Salmast / Haftvan

Location

The cemetery of Haftvan extends 450 metres south-east (N 38º 10°03.18°° E 044º45°36.96°°) of St. Gevorg Church, at the eastern extremity of the village.

Karapetian. Samvel, History of Armenia, Salmast, vol. 2, Yerevan, 2019, p. 210.

Historical Introduction

It is enclosed within walls of a maximum length of 145 metres and a width of 117 metres. It preserves more than 3,000 funerary memorials, including about 1,800 undressed slab-stones and more than 1,100 finely-finished rectangular tombstones. About thirty of the latter have cross-stones placed at their head parts.

Karapetian. Samvel, History of Armenia, Salmast, vol. 2, Yerevan, 2019, p. 210.

The oldest dated tombstones preserved in the cemetery trace back to the 16th century, but indeed, it also contains earlier burials without any date and modern ones that reach our days (the last epitaph dates from 2009).

Karapetian. Samvel, History of Armenia, Salmast, vol. 2, Yerevan, 2019, p. 210.

A press publication of 1943 states the following with regard to the cemetery: “After being used for about 200 years, the graveyard of our village no longer has any space to spare now so that often new coffins are just placed over the older ones.”

A. T., “Salmast,” p. 4.
Karapetian. Samvel, History of Armenia, Salmast, vol. 2, Yerevan, 2019, p. 210.

In October 1944 a gathering was held in Haftvan to discuss the enlargement and renovation of the cemetery. On 12 February 1945, the trustees of the village addressed the Armenians of Haftvan living in different parts of Iran with an appeal which particularly said the following: “Burials were held in the graveyard of Haftvan for centuries although its territory always remained the same. As a result of this, now there is absolutely no unoccupied space there so that often, during funerals, the eternal rest of the deceased is disturbed. Besides, the enclosure of the cemetery is destroyed and animals freely tread on the graves of your and our ancestors and relatives. [Given this situation], the local community addressed a petition to the trustees who convened a sitting on 15 October 1944, chaired by the Rural Dean of Salmast, Priest Ashot Poghossian, to discuss the inconsolable state of the cemetery which brings no honour to us. Meeting the noble desire of our people, for whom traditional values are sacred, we decided: 1. to enlarge the graveyard by buying a nearby plot of land which belongs to Mahtesy Avet Avetian (we should meet him to discuss this with him); 2. to build a proper enclosure, and 3. to construct a special hall within the cemetery—something that is an imperative—to save the local families from the trouble of holding expensive funeral repasts in their houses.
“The implementation of these decisions requires financial means, but the community of Haftvan cannot procure them. Therefore, we are calling on all our fellow villagers living outside the district to financially contribute to this sacred work.... As Mrs. Tamar Poghossian is leaving for Tehran (one of the fervent supporters of this initiative, she has already made some donation), the Board of Trustees decided to give her a fund-raising paper ratified by the Armenian Prelacy of Atrpatakan with a request to start collecting money in this city. At the same time, in order to ensure the success of the work, we are calling on our dear compatriots Samson Ojakhian, Vardan Melkonian, Hovhannes Martirossian, Khachatur Harutiunian and Sargis Petrossian, who live in Tehran, to actively support this respectable lady.”

Alik, no. 58, 20 March 1945, p. 2.
Karapetian. Samvel, History of Armenia, Salmast, vol. 2, Yerevan, 2019, pp. 210-211.

However, this initiative was not carried out. It was only about two decades later, in 1964, that the brothers Gurgen and Vazgen carried out their father Margar Sargissian’s cherished desire and repaired the enclosure of the cemetery, also planting some poplars there.

Alik, no. 9, 13 January 1965, p. 4. Margar Sargissian was a well-known benefactor. The brothers Sargissian allocated 31,000 rials for the implementation of the work.
Karapetian. Samvel, History of Armenia, Salmast, vol. 2, Yerevan, 2019, p. 211.

In 1943 the people of Haftvan still remembered the location of a common grave (“an area of about 50 sq. metres the oval outline of which could hardly be discerned”388) containing the remains of several hundred victims of the Genocide of 1915. Strange as it is, no memorial was ever placed at this grave, as a result of which, its place was consigned to oblivion in the course of time.
This work presents almost all the epitaphs of the cemetery in chronological order (only a small number of inscriptions have been omitted because either they are too damaged to be legible or the next tombstone is too close to the epitaph to allow its reading). On the whole, the graveyard preserves 604 dated tombstones which can be arranged in the following chronological order:
15th century - 1 piece
16th century - 1 piece
17th century - 4 pieces
18th century - 18 pieces
1800 to 1828 - 13 pieces
1829 to 1840 - 11 pieces
1841 to 1860 - 35 pieces
1861 to 1880 - 93 pieces
1881 to 1900 - 177 pieces
1900 to 1920 - 147 pieces
1921 to 2000 - 102 pieces
2000 to 2009 - 2 pieces
Nineteen of the 24 epitaphs dating from the 15th to the 18th centuries are published for the first time.

A. T., “Salmast,” p. 4.
Karapetian. Samvel, History of Armenia, Salmast, vol. 2, Yerevan, 2019, p. 211.

Author Samvel Karapetian
Date 2011 y․

Grave-stone

Khachkar

Grave-stone

Khachkar

Grave-stone

Khachkar

Grave-stone

Khachkar

Grave-stone