Gravestones in the village of Zolahach (Zolaghac)

In the village of Zolahach (Zolaghac) of the Qaranlig district of the Goycha district

Garanlig district–Martuni, Zolakhach village, Zolakar since 03.01.1935

Architecture

Currently, the cemetery area has been occupied by Armenians, and since most of the tombstones there are Turkish-Islamic monuments, they have been destroyed by Armenians and houses have been built in their place. The inscriptions on the few coffins that remain intact in the cemetery area have been erased by Armenians using chisels and cutting tools, desecrated, and presented as "Armenian monuments".

The coffins are located in the cemetery of the village of Zolagac. There are village houses and fruit trees around them. The coffins in the cemetery were of various sizes. They got their name because they were in the shape of a chest. The length of the coffins for adults in the ancient cemetery was about 1.7–2.5 meters, width 0.5–0.7, and height 0.5–0.7 m. They were mainly made by chiseling from gray rocks. In addition to the name and surname of the deceased in Arabic, the date of birth and death, as well as verses from the "Quran-i-Karim" were engraved on them. The smaller coffins, which were about 0.9–1.2 meters long, belonged to children.
Russian sources also note that Zolagach was a village in the Yeni Beyazid district of the Iravan province of Tsarist Russia, in the present-day Garanlig (Martuni) district, and the name of the village of Zolagach is also found in the list compiled by I. Chopin. In 1831, the population of Zolagach, consisting only of Azerbaijanis, was 128 people. In the data for 1873, Zolagach is already included in the list of mixed settlements: 75 Armenians and 153 Azerbaijanis. After this date, the demographic balance rapidly changed in favor of Armenians due to the Armenians brought from Turkey. In 1897, the number of Armenians in the village was almost 3 times higher than the number of Azerbaijanis: 286 Armenians and 107 Azerbaijanis. During the massacres committed by Dashnak troops in Goycha in 1918, 131 Azerbaijanis from the village were subjected to genocide, and the survivors left the village. After 1922, the Azerbaijanis who returned to the village and resumed their lives there were resettled in Azerbaijan in 1948.

Burial chest monuments are a tradition specific to Turkic-Islamic culture. The chest monuments show that the Turkic-Muslim population lived in the region throughout all periods of history.