Sourb Karapet (Holy Forerunner) Monastery :: ARTSAKH HISTORICAL MONUMENTS

Sourb Karapet (Holy Forerunner) Monastery

NKR / Karvajar / Chapni / Mets Chapni

Location

The ruins of a church, a chapel, a tomb and a vast cemetery abound in khachkars, are situated in the northern side of Large Chapni, in the upper part of a sloping ground between two streams.

Samvel Karapetian, Armenian Cultural Monuments in the Region of Karabakh, Yerevan, 2001, p. 29.

Description
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The complex of Chapni is one of the rare sites, which had been investigated earlier. Visiting the village in the middle of XIX cent. S. Jalaliants wrote: “Its tragic ruins show the richness of the past and witness only to their enviable glory”.

Sargis Archbishop Jalaliants, A Journey to Metzn Hayastan, part 1, Tiflis, 1842, p. 215.
Samvel Karapetian, Armenian Cultural Monuments in the Region of Karabakh, Yerevan, 2001, p. 29.

Briefly describing the standing structures Jalaliants copied two epigraphic inscriptions: the first was on the wall of the tomb, and the second - on the back of the khachkar erected on the same tomb.

Samvel Karapetian, Armenian Cultural Monuments in the Region of Karabakh, Yerevan, 2001, p. 29.

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Other investigators of this site, M. Ter-Movsissian, in the beginning of the present century and S. Barkhudarian - in the sixties have added practically nothing. It seems, the latter hadn’t been at the site and wrote merely hypothetically: “almost nothing has been preserved in this village former inhabited by Armenians.. .” And what did really preserve, when we visited the site during the expeditions of 1984 and 1993?

Mesrop Magistros Archbishop Ter-Movsisian, Churches and Religious Structures of Three Large Armenia Monasteries: Tatev, Haghartzin and Dadi Vank…, Jerusalem, 1970, p. 93.
"Corpus", Issue 5, compiled by S. Barkhudarian, Yerevan, 1982, p. 225.
Samvel Karapetian, Armenian Cultural Monuments in the Region of Karabakh, Yerevan, 2001, p. 31.

First of all we saw a partially destroyed church in the southwestern end of the complex with a quadrangular altar and two sacristies in the northern side. It was a vaulted structure built of coarse stone and mortar, of which the northern part has remained, while the southern section was almost totally collapsed. There were no inscriptions on the preserved walls. The length of the church was 5.50 m, width of the walls - 80 cm. The planning was exactly identical to that of Otzka Vank (the monastery near the village Ptretsik), which was doubtlessly built in the XIII cent.

S. Karapetian, Historical Architectural Monuments of the I'nrtsik Valley Related in the Newly Discovered Inscriptions, I labor, 1984, N 8 (see the plan on p. 84 - in Arm.).
Samvel Karapetian, Armenian Cultural Monuments in the Region of Karabakh, Yerevan, 2001, p. 31.

About 24-m northeast of the church there was a vaulted tomb with a khachkar still standing on it. Fortunately the former investigators (Jalaliants and Ter-Movsissian) have provided the detailed description of the tomb, owing to which we may now reconstruct its initial form: “A double-storied tomb with a khachkar inside. Its lower floor is rectangular, with the height of 2.5 m, the facade is open, and three other sides are built of finely processed stone. The second floor consists of four one-piece pillars crowned with a small dome. Under the dome and between the columns there is a beautiful cross with rich ornament, and deficient inscription”.

Mesrop Magistros Archbishop Ter-Movsisian, Churches and Religious Structures of Three Large Armenia Monasteries: Tatev, Haghartzin and Dadi Vank…, Jerusalem, 1970, p. 93.
Samvel Karapetian, Armenian Cultural Monuments in the Region of Karabakh, Yerevan, 2001, pp. 31, 33.

D. Akhundov has published the photography of the tomb, taken probably in the sixties. Currently, except the pillared dome, under which the khachkar was erected, other parts of the tomb are almost totally preserved, though badly worn. By some magic the fallen dome didn’t damage the cross.

D. A. Akhundov, Architecture of the Ancient and Early Medieval Azerbaijan, Baku 1986, p. 227, Fig. 263 (in Rus.).
Samvel Karapetian, Armenian Cultural Monuments in the Region of Karabakh, Yerevan, 2001, p. 33.

3-4 m north of the tomb there was a small vaulted chapel, still standing though mostly buried in the ground. It was also built of coarse stone and lime mortar. Like other structures of this area it had the same constructive and stylistic peculiarities, characteristic of the XIII cent.

Samvel Karapetian, Armenian Cultural Monuments in the Region of Karabakh, Yerevan, 2001, p. 33.

Besides the above mentioned constructions there were remainders and traces of other buildings in the site, about twenty wholesome or fragmented finely carved khachkars, some of them with inscriptions. Among the ruins we discovered a few inscribed stones of the facing. The content of khachkar inscriptions is mostly quite traditional. It contains the name of the deceased, name of the builder and remembrance prayer. What is most important, they provide the dating for the complexes, which by some reasons lack building inscriptions. In such cases the available data of the contemporaneous khachkars may enhance the dating of the entire complex.

Samvel Karapetian, Armenian Cultural Monuments in the Region of Karabakh, Yerevan, 2001, p. 33.

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Author Samvel Karapetyan
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Author Samvel Karapetyan
Date 2015 y․