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66 ARMENIA AND THE NEAR EAST
to a still current tradition no less a person than Alexander the
Great once besieged it in vain.
There are several places in these parts with similar remains
of ancient rock-dwellings in the mountain-sides. Vard2ia
has already been mentioned. It suggests that there must
once have been a primitive cave-dweller civilization here,
such as we find traces of in many other countries. Remains
of similar old caves are to be seen in the hillsides of the
Acropolis and Areopagus at Athens. In Crete the earliest
Stone Age people were cave-dwellers. In the country round
the Upper Tigris, too, there are many caves resembling the
oldest ones at Vardzia and Uplis-zikhe. The Khaldians, the
pre-Armenian people who lived in the region of Lake Van,
had caves also, but of a more developed kind. Probably
caves were used as dwellings from the very first. Subsequently
they were used in the religious cult of the great goddess of
the earth—the goddess of fertility. They became sanctuaries
of the earth-mother, or cliff-mother, whom it was easiest to
approach in her own dwelling, the rock. And later on they
naturally came to be used for the religious observances of the
Christian Church.1
At the foot of the mountain-slope at Uplis-zikhe there is
a little village. The inhabitants no longer live in caves, but
instead they often embed the back of their houses in the earthy
slopes as a protection against the cold winters. The village
church is a very old one built of brick.
The plain we were crossing seemed to be decidedly dry in
many places, though portions of it were wratered by artificial
irrigation. The soil was obviously rich, and could unquestion
ably be cultivated much better. In several places we saw the
people farming. They were ploughing with as many as
twelve oxen yoked to the plough, so the earth must be heavy
to turn, probably clayey and liable to be sun-baked into a
hard crust.
But what was yonder old castle perched on the top of a
sheer crag, like an eagle’s nest ? Queen Thamara’s castle.
Thamara—the nåme haunts one like a magic word. We
heard it first at Batum ; at Kutais there were the ruins of a
Cf. Lehmann-Haupt, op. eit., vol. ii, p. 617 f, 1927.
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