A gavit (Armenian գավիթ gawit‘) or zhamatun (Armenian: ժամատուն žamatun) is a congressional room or mausoleum added to the entrance of a church, and therefore often contiguous to its west side, in a Medieval Armenian monastery. It served as narthex (entrance to the church), mausoleum and assembly room, somewhat like the narthex or lite of a Byzantine church.[1] As an architectural element, the gavit was distinct from the church, and built afterwards.[2] Its first known instance is at the Horomos Monastery, dated to 1038, when it was already called "žamatun".[3][2] The term "gavit" started to replace the term zhamatum' from 1181, when it first appears in an inscription at the Sanahin Monastery.[4]
Gavit of Geghard Monastery in Armenia (UNESCO World Heritage Site). Dated 1215-1225, it has a muqarnas vault at the center.
The gavit of the Church of St. Amenaprkitch (left, built 1181) and the church itself, to which it is adjoined (right, built in 966), with corresponding plan. Sanahin Monastery.[5]
The gavit, the distinctive Armenian style of narthex, appeared in the tenth and eleventh centuries.[6] The first structures in the 10th century were simple quadrangular buildings without columns and protected by wooden roofs, used as dynastic necropoleis.[7] From the 11th century, the first known zhamatun with a four-columned structure appears in Hoṙomos Monastery, built in 1038 by King Yovhannēs-Smbat.[7] The vault was in the shape of an octogonal cone, and was decorated with superb reliefs.[7]
Many of the first zhamatun or gavits were located in the south of the Armenia in the region of Syunik. The type of construction changed during the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, as found in the monasteries of Saghmosavank of Haritchavank, or Hovhannavank Monastery. They changed again in the late thirteenth century as can be seen in monasteries such as Gandzasar, and gradually ceased to be built in the late Middle Ages.
The general structure of the gavit, with its nine-bayed plan is typical of the nine-bayed plan of mosques from the Abassid period onward, which can be seen from Spain to Central Asia.[8]
In the year of the Armenians 487 (ie 1038), I, the šahanšah Yovannēs, son of the šahanšah Gagik, gave my vineyard located in Kołb to this church of mine, Surb-Yovannēs, which I have built in this monastery of Hoṙomos, along with this žamatun...
—Dedicatory inscription of the gavit at Horomos.[9]
The mention of the term gavit for such buildings appears for the first time more than a century later in 1181 in the dedicatory inscription at the Sanahin Monastery by Abbot Yovhannēs:[10]
In the year 630 (ie 1181 CE), at the time of the victorious king Georg, and amirspasalarSargis and his sons Zak‘arē and Iwanē, and amiraK‘urd, I, Yovannēs, Abbot of the holy monastery (re)built this once existing church and a gawit‘ from its foundations, with the help of amir K‘urd and the great vardapet Grigor and Christ God, with great hope...[10]
From the outside, a gavit or zhamatun only looks like a big rectangular block in front of a church, often with a colonnaded belvedere on top convering the hole of the oculus.[11]
It seems that zhamatun was used to refer to new structures built more-or-less contemporaneously with the neighbouring church to serve funerary or commemorative functions, while the terms gavit referred to a space built next to older churches, covering existing ancient gravestones.[12] "Gawit‘" had an ancient meaning of "open courtyard" referring to the existing space around old churches where the graves of the nobility were already placed, while žami tun means “house of hours” in Armenian, "zam" designating a time of the day dedicated to prayer.[12]
The earliest style of gavit consists of an oblong vault supported by double arches, with an erdik (lantern or oculus) center, and adorned with eight decorated slabs, as seen in the earliest known gavit at Horomos dated 1038.[3][2] In later types the vault would often be decorated with muqarnas stalactite designs.[13] This early type of muqarnas vault used cut stone in a way similar to that of Anatolian Seljuk architecture, different from the typical Armenian vault construction, which used thin stone facing on mortared rubble.[14] This form was replaced by a square room with four columns, divided into nine sections with a dome in the center. The muqarnas motif was clearly inspired by Islamic sources, but it was used differently, and the Armenian muqarnas vault with oculus was not found in the Muslim world until it was copied about a century later, as in the vault of the Yakutiye Madrasa in nearby Erzurum (1310).[15] The "lightwell" itself, with central oculus, is known in Anatolian art from earlier periods, as in the Divriği Great Mosque and Hospital (built 1228-1229).[16] The last evolution consists of a gavit without columns and with arched ceilings.
On the west side of the Church of the Holy Redeemer in the Sanahin Monastery complex, the gavit built in 1181 has four tall free-standing internal pillars supporting arches. The pillars and their bases are elaborately decorated. In the same complex, the gavit of the Mother of God church is a three-nave hall with lower arches and less elaborate decorations on the pillars.[17]
Some major examples of gavits and zhamatuns, ordered chronologically:
The first known zhamatun is from Horomos, dated 1038. Vault with oculus ("lightwell") and decorated slabs in an octogonal layout.[3][2]
Astvatsankal Monastery: the gavit and its vault with muqarnas design, with a central erdik or oculus, which may have been covered by a colonnaded canopy. 1250.[22]
Medieval Armenian architecture: constructions of race and nation Christina Maranci – 2001 "Unlike Strzygowski, who stressed the importance of race and nation in the formation of architecture, ... Another structure at Ani also provided Baltrusaitis with an ogive — the narthex or gavit' located at the south side of the church."
Vardanyan, Edda (1 January 2015). "The Žamatun of Hoṙomos and the Žamatun/Gawit' Structures in Armenien Architecture". Hoṙomos Monastery: Art and History, edited by Edda Vardanyan, Paris: ACHCByz: 207. From the end of the 10th century, simple quadrangular buildings without columns but with wooden roofs appeared adjacent to churches (mainly on the western side), serving as dynastic necropoleis. No particular name was given to them. No particular name was given to them. The oldest of such centrally-planned four-columned ante-ecclesial structures is that of Hoṙomos Monastery, built in 1038 by King Yovhannēs-Smbat together with the Upper Church of St. John (Surb-Yovhannēs). It has a rectangular ground plan and four central columns. The ceiling is shaped like an octagonal cone and is decorated with sumptuous reliefs, while externally an eight-column rotunda rises above the entire construction.
Vardanyan, Edda (1 January 2015). "The Žamatun of Hoṙomos and the Žamatun/Gawit' Structures in Armenien Architecture". Hoṙomos Monastery: Art and History, edited by Edda Vardanyan, Paris: ACHCByz: 221. All the above discussion permits the following conclusions. Those structures that were built next to and almost simultaneously with newly founded churches with the specific purpose of serving a funerary/commemorative function were called žamatun, while those built adjacent to older churches, covering already existing gravestones were called gawit'. This hypothesis is further confirmed by a historical-philological analysis of the respective terms.
Ghazarian, Armen; Ousterhout, Robert (2001). "A Muqarnas Drawing from Thirteenth-Century Armenia and the Use of Architectural Drawings during the Middle Ages". Muqarnas. 18: 151. doi:10.2307/1523305. ISSN0732-2992. Working similarly with cut stone, the Seljuq muqarnas provide a close technical comparison to Armenian construction. It is worth noting that the corbelled construction of the Armenian muqarnas vaults are technically and structurally closer to the Seljuq examples than they are to typical Armenian vault construction, which had a thin stone facing on a mortared rubble.
Eastmond, Antony (1 January 2017). Tamta's World: The Life and Encounters of a Medieval Noblewoman from the Middle East to Mongolia. Cambridge University Press. p.297. doi:10.1017/9781316711774.011. The most obvious architectural form that was adopted in Armenian churches was the muqarnas vault. A fine example is the complex muqarnas that was used to build up the central vault of the zhamatun at Harichavank, which was added to the main church in the monastery by 1219. The origin of this type of vaulting clearly comes from Islamic sources, but it is used very differently here. There are no comparable examples in the Islamic world of using it to form complete vaults with an oculus in the centre. Throughout Anatolia in this period muqarnas were used to form niche heads. It was used for domes elsewhere in the Islamic world, as at Nur al-Din Zangi's 1174 hospital in Damascus, but conceived very differently: the monastic muqarnas are structurally pendentives, whereas the Damascus dome is a succession of stucco squinches. A generation later the Armenian use of muqarnas was re-imported into the Muslim world, and buildings such as the Yakutiye Madrasa in Erzurum (1310) copied the idea of a muqarnas vault around an oculus.
Eastmond, Antony (1 January 2017). Tamta's World: The Life and Encounters of a Medieval Noblewoman from the Middle East to Mongolia. Cambridge University Press. pp.31–32. doi:10.1017/9781316711774.003.
Eastmond, Antony (1 January 2017). Tamta's World: The Life and Encounters of a Medieval Noblewoman from the Middle East to Mongolia. Cambridge University Press. p.300. doi:10.1017/9781316711774.011. Many of these overlaps come together in one building, the zhamatun that was added to the early eleventh-century church of the Holy Apostles in Ani some time shortly before 1217 (the earliest inscription on the building). Note 25: A date of around 1200 is supported by the similarity of the vaulting of the zhamatun of the monastery at Bagnayr, where the earliest inscription dates to 1201: Basmadjian, Inscriptions arméniennes d'Ani, no. 150.
Ani Cultural Landscape(PDF). Unesco. p.31. The similarity of short and fat columns with capitals bearing muqarnas ornamentation can be found inside the hall at the monastery of Horomos and Bagnayr Monasteries.
Ghazarian, Armen; Ousterhout, Robert (2001). "A Muqarnas Drawing from Thirteenth-Century Armenia and the Use of Architectural Drawings during the Middle Ages". Muqarnas. 18: 145. doi:10.2307/1523305. ISSN0732-2992. The original chapel at the site dates from the fifth or sixth century, to which the main church or katholikon was added on the north side. It is dated by inscription to 1244, attributed to the patronage of Prince K'urd and his wife Xorisali. A separate inscription names a master, presumably the builder, named Yovhanes. The large gavit or narthex was constructed immediately following the church, and must have been completed by ca. 1250.
"Unesco. Geghard Monastery"(PDF). The prosperity of the monastery in the thirteenth century was due to the patronage of the Proshyan prince, who carved out the second cave church in 1283, reached through a rock-cut antechamber which served as their mausoleum. The burials are in a recess behind twin arches, over which two felines on leashes and an eagle with a lamb in its talons, the family's armoured bearings have been sculpted in bold relief.
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