[Episode 7] In this week’s episode, when I showed Ashley a pinwheel design painted on the ceiling of a cave in California, her first thought was of the Armenian eternity sign called the Arevakhach. The similarity is striking, but I knew nothing about the Arevakhach so I decided to look into it as the subject of this week’s blog. The Arevakhach is an ancient Armenian symbol that has come to be a symbol of identity for the Armenian people. It can be seen everywhere in Armenian architecture, especially in the walls of churches and carved on memorial stele called khachkars.
In the symbology of medieval Armenia, Arevakhach denoted the concept of eternal life. Elizabeth Bower-Mandorff remarks, “The circle, as a line returning upon itself, represents perfection. Having neither beginning or end, it is the symbol of eternity. The architects expressed the concept of everlasting, celestial life in the knowledge of the presence and effect of the divine power of the sphere.”[i] The first examples of khachkars with the Arevakhach symbol date to the fifth century AD and it had become an established national iconographic practice by the eighth century.
In the village of Garni in the Kotayk Province of Armenia, sits the beautiful twelfth century church of Mashtots Hayrapet, which was built on top of a former pagan shrine. The church has the Arevakhach high up on its tower. A further Arevakhach can be found carved onto a piece of red limestone or tufa, in the courtyard of the church. This Arevakhach is a little unusual as it is located under the tail feathers of a bird. The bird is perched on an elaborate branch of foliage that curves around it. The piece may have originally come from the ancient pagan shrine rather than being directly associated with the Christian church.
The church at Mashtots Hayrapet is constructed from a dark gray stone, and although red tufa is used around the windows, roof and dome, it is not used for figural carving. The bird stone has no direct Christian symbology, for instance, there is no cross. In the context of the position of the Arevakhach under the bird’s tail, it would seem to represent an egg. It may, therefore, represent an ancient pagan notion of the eternal cycle of life. In other words, the panel may represent an ancient Armenian version of the age-old question: what came first the chicken or the egg.
The bird stone at Mashtots Hayrapet is a tantalizing hint that Armenia’s eternity symbol might be pre-Christian and later have been adopted and adapted into Christian iconography. The symbol has now morphed meaning again into a symbol of national identity and today is used on commemorative coins and by many government and non-government agencies in Armenia and the Armenian diaspora removed from any direct Christian context. It is an interesting thought that such a symbol of eternity seems to have endured through pagan, Christian, and now secular significance.
Sources:
Elizabeth Bower-Manndorff, Armenia: Past and Present (Reich Verlag, 1981).
Jacob G. Ghazaria, The Mediterranean Legacy in Early Celtic Christianity: A Journey from Armenia to Ireland (Bennet and Bloom, 2006).
Károly Gink and Károly Gombos, Armenia: Landscape and Architecture (Corvina Press, 1974)
Brady Kiesling, Rediscovering Armenia: Guide (Matit Graphic Design, 2005)
Mashtots Hayrapet Church of Garni, Wikipedia, accessed June 13, 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashtots_Hayrapet_Church_of_Garni
Armenian Eternity Sign, Wikipedia, accessed June 13, 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_eternity_sign
Picture Credits: Arevakhach Hakaravank, by Pandukht accessed on wikimedia commons 10/12/2024 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arevakhach_Makaravank.JPG
Pagan Symbology, Mashtots Hayrapet Church of Garni, Amernia. by Liveon001 accessed on wikimedia commons on 10/12/2024 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashtots_Hayrapet_Church_of_Garni#/media/File:Mashtots_Hayrapet_Pagan.JPG
[i] Elizabeth Bower-Manndorff, Armenia: Past and Present (Reich Verlag, 1981), 89.
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