Signs, Memory and Medieval Funerary Stone Carvings in the Lake Sevan Basin

Abstract

Lake Sevan, the largest freshwater lake in the Middle East, lies at the centre of the basin exceptionally rich in historical and cultural monuments. The medieval cemeteries surrounding the lake preserve thousands of gravestones marked by a wide variety of iconography and inscriptions. 
Within this landscape, the village of Noratus contains the largest preserved medieval Christian cemetery in the Middle East. This study examines the gravestones of the basin of Lake Sevan as sign-bearing monuments whose ornamentation and iconography – including vegetal-geometric, anthropomorphic, and zoomorphic representations, as well as Armenian inscriptions – constitute a semantic and readable system. The tombstones preserved within the cemeteries – horizontally positioned gravestones– and khachkars (cross-stones) – vertically erected gravestones – express, organize, and produce meaning, thereby creating a unified communicative framework. The symbolic images carved on khachkars, including crosses, biblical scenes and figures, vegetal motifs, geometric compositions, and celestial symbols – Tombstones, by contrast, often display scenes of feasting, music and song, hunting, military processions and warfare, burial scenes, animal combat, eagles clutching prey, children, scholars (wise men), craftsmanship, and agricultural activities. Considered both individually and as part of broader compositions, these images reflect the social identities, collective memories, and religious beliefs of the communities that inhabited the basin of Lake Sevan between the 9th and 18th centuries. This study reaffirms that the iconography of these gravestones functions as a semantic tool that engages the viewer and organizes thought by connecting individual, communal, and localized historical perceptions, placing them within the broader framework of universal visual language and symbolic interpretation.