Memorial Complex of Minas or Khantakht Ancient Site

Iran / Western Atrpatakan / Salmast / Minas

Location

This complex is located on the western side of the village, on two slopes (going down south-east and south-west) of the rocky Mount Khantakht or Pirchavush.

Karapetian. Samvel, History of Armenia, Salmast, vol. 2, Yerevan, 2019, p. 387.

Description

The oldest monuments of the site are situated on the south-eastern slope of the mountain, 2.5 km south-west of the village (N 38°08°54.05°°; E 044°53°36.13°°). They are at an altitude of 1,414 metres and date back to the 13th century BC (according to the study of clay artefacts). There one can see as well the remnants of various monuments dating from the times of Van Kingdom, from the 9th into the 6th centuries BC (walls of huge roughly hewn stones fitted together without any mortar; rock-cut steps; a mausoleum of three departments hewn in the rock; remains of a reservoir; and tracks of about 15 various constructions).

The details concerning the construction of the fortress see in Dilmaghani, p. 57; Ahrenjani, pp. 95, 99. See also A. V. Jackson Williams (Abraham Valentine Williams), Persia. Past and Present: A Book of Travel and Research (New York, 1906), pp. 79-81.
The description of the remnants of the fortress buildings and their usage has been already given before (Ahrenjani, p. 92).
Karapetian. Samvel, History of Armenia, Salmast, vol. 2, Yerevan, 2019, p. 387.

The most famous monument of the memorial complex is the Sassanian bas-relief (N 38°08°48.53°°; E 044°53°36.23°°, at an altitude of 1,358 metres) on the polished surface of one of the vertical rocks on the south-western slope of the mountain.

Karapetian. Samvel, History of Armenia, Salmast, vol. 2, Yerevan, 2019, p. 387:

Yet in 1857, Raffi was the first to record the presence of the bas-relief: “... on the western side of the mountain, on a chiseled surface of a rock (it is 50 arshines wide) are carved some enormous sculptures in Nineveh style. It is a victory scene: two mounted soldiers are chasing a third one, and the fourth, perhaps wounded, is lying on the ground. The weapons are old fashioned. There is no inscription on the bas-relief.”

Raffi, Collected Works, vol. 8. Yerevan, 1963, p. 403.
Karapetian. Samvel, History of Armenia, Salmast, vol. 2, Yerevan, 2019, p. 387.

Tradition has it that the Armenian king Arshak II was first imprisoned by Shapur in this fortress, now in ruins. The place has been mentioned as Prcha-housh, Prchot [hairy], or the monument of Arshak II. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Persian government asked a group of French archaeologists to carry out excavations on the territory near to the rock, but this request was rejected. Over the course of time, many researchers were interested in this bas-relief but the author of the most comprehensive study is A. Melikian. Analyzing all the materials devoted to the bas-relief and published in different times, he created a large and fundamental work, in the summary of which we read: “Our observations concerning the genre and identification of the bas-relief showed that the horsemen depicted on the left and on the right of the scene are the Kings of Kings Artashir I and Shapur I who are handing over rings of power to their sons, correspondingly to Shapur and Vormizd-Artashir. It has been found out as well that the investiture represented on the left side of the bas-relief took place in 235-238, and the second in 242, between February and April. This elucidation allows us to think that the left-side group of images was created by Artashir I on the occasion of crowning his son as “the great king of Armenia.”

Շատէլ Արաբ /Արտաշես Տեր-Աբրահամյան/, Երկու յուշարձաններ [Shatel Arab /Artashes Ter-Abrahamian/, “Two Monuments”], «Մշակ» [Mshak], no. 226, 8 October 1914, p. 4.
A. Melikian, The Bas-Relief of Salmast, Yerevan, 2016, p. 44.
Karapetian. Samvel, History of Armenia, Salmast, vol. 2, Yerevan, 2019, p. 387.

The newest monument (according to chronology) preserved on Khantakht or Pirchavoush mountain is the fortress (N 38°09°20.87°°; E 044°52°34.42°°) on its south-western slope. Unfortunately, only a short section of the fortress walls (built of small rough stones bound by mortar) has come down to us. The tracks of the other parts of the fortress walls allow us to presume that the fortress was surrounded by walls of irregular plan and they were reinforced by at least 8 semicircular towers. In the highest part of the fortress can be seen the traces of the citadel which in its turn was reinforced by at least 3 similar towers.
As for the time of construction, the building peculiarities of the preserved sections of the walls are typical of the late Middle Ages.

Karapetian. Samvel, History of Armenia, Salmast, vol. 2, Yerevan, 2019, pp. 388-389.

Relief, Bas-Relief 3 c․

Author Sasun Danielian
Date 2017 y․

Sassanid bas-relief (3rd century) on the rock in the neighbourhood of the village (photos by S. Danielian, 2017)

Author Sasun Danielian
Date 2017 y․

Sassanid bas-relief (3rd century) on the rock in the neighbourhood of the village

Author Sasun Danielian
Date 2017 y․

Author Ashot Hakobian
Date 2017 y․

Name	Year/Century	Etymology
Pirchavoush