Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Gavit" in English language version.
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.
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.
The gavit of S. Astvatsatsin was built by Prince Vache Vachutian (a more southerly dynast) in 1211, that of Amenaprkich in 1181 under the sponsorship of the Kyurikian family.
The common nine-bayed plan of the gavit calls to mind the typical nine-bayed mosque plan that spread through-out the Islamic world from Central Asia to Spain after the Abbasid era; at the same time, the domed, nine-bayed design was common for the naos of both Byzantine and Armenian church.
lts. Above the square central space was a complex muqarnas vault, measuring just over 5 m on each side, with a central erdik or oculus, which may have originally been covered by a colonnated canopy.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The common nine-bayed plan of the gavit calls to mind the typical nine-bayed mosque plan that spread through-out the Islamic world from Central Asia to Spain after the Abbasid era; at the same time, the domed, nine-bayed design was common for the naos of both Byzantine and Armenian church.
lts. Above the square central space was a complex muqarnas vault, measuring just over 5 m on each side, with a central erdik or oculus, which may have originally been covered by a colonnated canopy.
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.
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.
