Every gravestone in Armenia tells a story.
No “Here lies so and so, wise father, good husband" replete with dates.
Armenia goes instead for pictograms to explain the life and death of the people interred.
One gravestone showed a man stabbed in the back. The man was surrounded by tools of the smithing trade, so he would have been a respected tradesman. There was also a picture of a crying woman carved into the stone. You might interpret that here was a wife concerned for her future now her husband was gone. We were told not. This representation meant she was beaten by her husband and it was she who stabbed him in the back!
The gravestone shown is for two people, who are in the top left hand corner of the gravestone.
Can you see how the middle of the stone shows their wedding day with a table laden with food and surrounded by many amphorae of alcohol.
The bottom left corner shows a man on horseback. The pony tail of hair coming from the centre of the top of his head shows him to be a Mongol horseman.
One figures shown in the middle bottom is shown only from the waist down. In the bottom right corner the second figure has the top half of their head missing. This tells us that the bridal couple were hacked to pieces by the Mongol.
Fascinating stuff.
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