Identifier: travelsingeorgia02port (find matches)
Title: Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, ancient Babylonia, &c. &c. : during the years 1817, 1818, 1819, and 1820
Year: 1821 (1820s)
Authors: Porter, Robert Ker, Sir, 1777-1842
Subjects: Porter, Robert Ker, Sir, 1777-1842
Publisher: London : Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown
Contributing Library: Tisch Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

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ia after the introduction of Christianity. But 614 SEPULCHRAL RAM. having observed it first in some old burying grounds near Ou-roomia, and in others beyond Tabreez, I conceived that it mustbe over Mahomedan graves, and probably marked the last bedsof some heroes of the Black and White Ram factions; but findingit thus at Julfa, I can have no hesitation in supposing it anemblem connected with the Christian faith. Subjoined is asketch I made from one of the largest, and most ornamented;which may be sufficient to give an idea of the uncouthnessof shape, but indefatigable labour of ornament, exhibited inthese strange memorials of the dead. On one of the sides, thelegend of St. George slaying the dragon, is most curiouslycarved; and on the other, some second champion, followed bythree walking personages bearing a long pole. The tail also ishonoured with the figure of an equestrian saint, bound roundwith a scroll stampt with Armenian letters. A sort of net-workcovers the neck of the animal.
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RECEPTION IN THE RUINS. 6I5 I shall not exceed the fact, when I say that thousands of grave-stones marked this awful depositary of the old Armenian race. In-deed the various sorts of recollections which present themselvesto the mind in this particular quarter of the East, continuallysuggest the idea of treading over some vast tomb. And it is so:for here the first fathers of all the families of the earth wereburied; here immense empires rose, and crumbled into dust;here we find the remains of cities, whose founders died in theinfancy of the world; and the monuments of people, sunk solong into the depths of time, that the name of their nation isno more remembered. The cemetery of the Armenians at Julfawas not yet in such a case, though the individuals which filledit were mingled in the common mass; but the time may come,when the ram on its hills, may be as little assignable to themthere, as I found it on the tombs beyond Tabreez; or as therude sculptures dug up in the endless tumuli nor

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