The Cupola Church. An Archaeological Stratigraphic Description

This paper presents an archaeological analysis of the Cupola Church in Yeghegis, highlighting the distinctive construction features of a building representative of an architectural type widely found in medieval Armenia. Through stratigraphic investigation, the research details the church’s construction procedures, the traces of the devotion of the worshippers, and the restoration interventions of the 1970s. By situating the building within the broader framework of sacred architecture in Vayots‘ Dzor and the neighboring regions, the study narrows the dating of the church to the late thirteenth century and traces architectural continuities and influences that contribute to our understanding of the architectural program promoted by the Ōrbēlean dynasty in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.