Éghvard, (Arménie, début XIV^e siècle), La chapelle de l’alliance

The chapel of Yeghvard was built in the first third of the 14^th century. The small local principality was one of the rare areas in Armenia where an artistic activity was able to continue during the tough period of Mongol domination. The three-storeyed building comprises a chapel-mausoleum, an oratory, and a bell-tower in the shape of a small rotunda, a structure of Antique origin, popular at that period in Armenia. The Yeghvard chapel distinguishes itself by its elegance, the abundance and quality of its sculpted decoration, widely open to contacts with the Muslim world, and by the presence, under its cupola, of a row of Persian tiles dating from the end of the 13^th - beginning of the 14^th cent. Its architect Shahik was also the author, in 1314, of the mausoleum of Khachen-Dorbatly, built some 200 km to the East, for a Muslim lord.