Oshakan Village

Oshakan(Arm: Օշական), Aragatsotn Marz

Oshakan (4803 p), is most famous as the last resting place of Mesrop Mashtots, (d 442) founder of the Armenian Alphabet. Above his grave (19th c. gravestone) is a church =50+= (40 15.53n x 044 18.90e) rebuilt by Katholikos George IV in 1875. It has wall-paintings from 1960 by the artist H. Minasian. See below (Armavir Marz, the Northeast Corner, for the 1827 Battle of Oshakan, a monument to which lies near Ejmiatsin on the road S.

Excavations on Didikond hill, which rises just behind (S) of Oshakan, revealed a square fort of the 7-5th c. BC, with five palace complexes on the N slope. Just N of Oshakan, in a little valley called Mankanots, is a 7th c. S. Sion church, with beside it an unusual pillar on a plinth dated to the 6-7th c. and traditionally believed to mark the grave of the Byzantine emperor Mauricius or his mother, based on the fact that one Armenian historian says he came from here. Elsewhere in the vicinity are shrines of S. Grigor, S. Sargis, S. Tadevos the Apostle, a rock-cut Astvatsatsin, and a Tukh Manuk shrine atop the hill. The area has a series of rich Iron Age tomb fields. W of Oshakan is a bridge of 1706 over the Kasagh river.

Source: Rediscovering Armenia Guidebook

Map

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