The Images of Eagles in the Context of the Architecture of the Ani Cathedral and the El ‘Adhra Cathedral in Hah
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18688/Keywords:
medieval architecture, sculpture of the eagle, Christian Orient, Armenia, Mesopotamia, Ani Cathedral, El ‘Adhra in HahAbstract
The study was supported by the Russian Science Foundation, project no. 22-18-00354-П, https://rscf.ru/project/22-18-00354/ , in the National Research Moscow State University of Civil Engineering (NRU MGSU).
For the first time, the article draws attention to the peculiarities of the sculptures of two eagles on the southern façade of the Ani Cathedral, built in the last two decades of the tenth century in the Armenian capital. It is noted that they were given special importance, due to which special niches were created for their placement. Attention is drawn to the paired images of eagles in this monument and to the broad interpretation of this idea later, in Armenian architecture of the 13th century. The closest analogues of these sculptures are proposed to consider the eagles on the drum of the El ‘Adhra Cathedral in Northern Mesopotamia, presumably constructed from the 6th to the 10th centuries, and which was rebuilt in the Middle Ages and early 20th century. The symbolic meaning of the eagles on the walls of these churches is proposed to be explored in the field of sacred rather than secular issues, as well as taking into account the religious development of a particular cultural and ethnic group.
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