User:LouisAragon/sandbox/Bagavan

Bagavan (also spelled Bagawan; Բագավան) was an ancient locality in the central part of Armenia in the principality of Bagrevand. Situated on a tributary of the Euphrates at the foothills of Mount Npat, to the north of Lake Van, Bagavan held one of the major temples of pre-Christian Armenia. After the Christianization of Armenia, Bagavan became the site of a large church and monastery. Pillaged in 1877 by the Kurds, it was completely destroyed in 1915 during the Armenian Genocide. The site is located in the village of Taşteker to the west of modern Diyadin, Turkey.

Name
The name Bagavan literally translates as "town of the gods". Agathangelos explained Bagavan as Parthian for Armenian dicʿ-awan ("town of the gods"), but Movses Khorenatsi held it as bagnacʿn awan ("town of altars"). Ptolemy recorded the name in Greek as Sakauana.

History
Bagavan was the site of one of the most important shrines of pre-Christian Armenia, and an eternal flame was kept burning there. The royal family of Armenia celebrated the first day of the first month (Nawasard) of the Armenian calendar at Bagavan. Bagavan was also a centre for the worship of Aramazd. Movses Khorenatsi attributed the foundation of the altar at Bagavan to "the last Tigran" and the establishment of the New Year festival to King Valarsaces; however, the modern scholar Robert H. Hewsen notes that these theories were probably Moses's own inventions.

According to Agathelos, Tiridates III of Armenia ((r. undefined – undefined)287–330) and his court were baptized by Gregory the Illuminator at Bagavan in the Euphrates. According to tradition, Gregory founded the monastery of St. John the Baptist at Bagavan, from which the town received its Turkish name Üç Kilise ("the three churches"). The Sasanian king (shah) Yazdegerd II ((r. undefined – undefined)438–457) camped at Bagavan in 439 during his punitive campaign in Sasanian Armenia.

Bagavan's St. John the Baptist church was completed in 631–639 on the left bank of the Euphrates river. Hewsen notes that it was originally surrounded by a "high wall flanked with towers which protected the monasting buildings within". In 1877, it was ransacked by Kurds before being completely demolished in 1915 during the Armenian Genocide.