Maky ( Arm. Մակու ) is a fortified city in Artaz (15th region of Great Armenia, Vaspurakan province). The capital of the principality is Amatunik . The dynasty of princes Amatuni , who had Caspian-Meid or Mannian origin, originated from Artaz and owned it for millennia, with its residence in the fortified city of Shavarshan (Maky).
History
In ancient times, the territory of Arthaza was part of the Nairi civilization, together with the Chuashrot , it was the northern part of the Hurrian region of Armanili (Armarili, a distorted assyr. ). Then, the region for many centuries was part of the kingdom of Biainili . Subsequently, after the death of Urartu (Arartu) , Artaz belonged to the kingdom of Matien . After the fall of Matien, under the blows of the Scythians and Medes, the surviving Mathenian principality of Amatunik joined Great Armenia and Arthaz became the Armenian historical region as part of Vapspurakan.
In 451, the famous Avarayr battle between Armenians and Persians took place here, south of Maku .
Maku , called Shavarshan, belonged to the Armenian dynastic family Amatuni for millennia.
Late Middle Ages
An artasian branch of this kind owned the Maku fortress (Shavarshan) back in the 15th century, as the Castilian diplomat and traveler don Rui Gonzalez de Flaviho described in his book during his travels to the court of Emir Tamerlane (referred to in the book [Tamurbek]) to Samarkand.
A 15th-century Spanish historian Rui González de Clavijo , who visited this city while traveling to Samarkand, said:
 | On Sunday, the first of June, at Vespers, [the messengers] approached the castle called Mack. This castle belonged to one Catholic Christian named Noradin (Hyp ad-Din), and all its inhabitants were also Catholic Catholics, although they are Armenian by origin and their language is Armenian. But they knew both Tatar and Persian. In the same area was the monastery of the brothers of St. Domenik. This castle was, as it were, in the corner of the valley, at the foot of a very high rock, located higher on the slope, and even higher there was a fence of adobe bricks and stone with towers inside, and behind the wall were houses where people lived, and further up the slope [seen] housing. Then there was another fence with pointed roofs reaching the [height] of the first fence. The entrance to this second fence went along the steps carved into the rock. And above the entrance is a large watchtower. Further, behind this second fence, houses were located right in the rock, and in the middle there were towers and [again] houses where the seigneur was located and where the inhabitants of the city kept their supplies. The rock, where these buildings stood, went far up, much higher than the fence and all the houses. A canopy protrudes from it, covering the castle, the fence and the house, forming a kind of dome above them. If it rains, water from the sky does not fall on the castle, since the [ledge] of the rock completely covers it. Thus, the castle is located so that it can not be attacked either from the earth or from the sky. Inside, there is a key that supplies water to the whole city and irrigates many gardens. And at the foot of the castle lies a beautiful valley along which the river flows. [There] are many vineyards and wheat-sown fields. Tamurbek besieged this castle, but could not take it, and with his lord agreed that he would put him [in the army] twenty horsemen, as soon as this was necessary. After some time, Tamurbek [again] passed here with his army and the castle lord called his son, who was about twenty years old, and gave him three horses with good decoration, so that he would give them as a gift to Tamurbek. When Tamurbek approached the foot of the castle [Maku], the son [of the seigneur] came out and offered him three horses on behalf of his father. [Tamurbek] accepted [the gift] and ordered to declare that no one [from the army] should do harm in all this land belonging to this castle ... The messengers stayed there that day that they arrived. Later, in the army of the Persian emperor, they saw the son of the owner of this castle and spoke with him. And the lord of this castle also had another son, younger than that [first], and he told the messengers that this son was a grammar and good knowledge of the language and that when, by the will of the Lord God, they would return [from Tamurbek], he would let them go [this of their son], so that they would take him to the sovereign king [Castile] so that he would recommend to the pope to make him bishop in this land. And it is surprising that this castle is kept among so many Moors and so far away from Christians ... [1] |
Subsequently, they were allies of the Safavids against Ak Koyunlu , and according to their princely dignity they became Persian khans (Khosrov Khan, Allahverdi Khan Amatuni).
The Amatuni lost their fortress to Maku in the 16th century, as a result of the Safavid-Ottoman wars and the long occupation of Artaz by the Ottomans and their Kurdish allies, who eventually captured Maku fortress.
The impregnable fortress of the Amatuni clan, Maku, fell only as a result of the appearance of artillery, namely artillery in the troops of the Ottoman Empire.
The vast majority of the Armenian population of Maku moved, headed by the Amatuni clan, in the vicinity of Ardabil , to the eastern part of Karadag (Matian mountains), the lands remained under the control of the Safavids after 1555. Subsequently, many of them were returned back to the confluence of Artaz and Chuashroth, by Allahverdi-khan Amatuni, after the north-western Iran (Azarbaijan) returned to the control of the Safavids in the beginning of the XVII century. Several Armenian villages have been preserved there to this day.
Notes
Links
- TO CHAPTER 44 (unavailable link from 07-02-2018 [573 days])