Inscriptions in the village of Altuntakht

In the village of Yukhari Altuntakht in the Kavar district of the Goycha district

Kavar district - Kamo since 13.04.1959

Decorative applied art

Of the very few epigraphic inscriptions that have survived to this day in Western Azerbaijan, several still remain on the Altuntakht plateau as examples of the material culture of the Azerbaijani people. The cemetery's location in the inaccessible mountains, in a plateau area, has partially protected it from Armenian vandalism. At present, several of the epitaphs remain in a state of half-bent and lying on the ground.

In the present-day Republic of Armenia, at an altitude of 2,528 m above sea level, in a place called Altuntakht, there is an ancient Muslim cemetery. The area is reached by difficult mountain paths. The inaccessible mountains of Western Azerbaijan still preserve great examples of Azerbaijani heritage. The epitaph reads “el-marhūmet el-maghfūret Hanîfe binti Süleymân Nûrî Aglamî gafa-rallahu lehūma fî sene 1127 [1715]” which translates as: “The spared, forgiven, Aglamîlî Suleyman Nuri gizi Hanîfe, may God protect them. 1715”. Altuntakht is one of the places mentioned in the epic “Dade Gorgud”.
Based on the dates of the two headstones we have, the cemetery can be dated to the 18th–19th centuries.
Yukhari Altuntakht was a village in Yeni Bayazid district of Yerevan province, in the territory of the present-day Sevan region. In the 18th century, it was part of the Goycha mahala of the Yerevan khanate. The village was located between the present-day Kavar (Kamo) region and Sevan region, near the village of Ashagi Altuntakht, at the foot of the Altuntakht mountain. In the “Compendium of the Yerevan Province” compiled in 1728, the Goycha district was mentioned in the “Jamb” work of the 18th century Armenian Catholicos S. Iravansi as part of the Gegharkunik province in the form of “Altuntakht”. The village was turned into a ruin at the end of the 18th century. In Armenian sources, it is mentioned as Verin Altuntakht, Verin Altundağ (“Verin” in Armenian means upper). I. Chopin also mentioned the name of the village of Yukhari Altuntakht among the 27 villages turned into ruins in the Goycha district. In the list compiled by I. Chopin of 67 settlements completely destroyed by Armenian-Russian military units in Goycha during the Iran-Russia wars of 1826–1828 and the Turkey-Russia wars of 1828–1829, the names of the villages of Yukhari and Ashaghi Altuntakht, which were given to the administration of the newly created Armenian province, are in the 12th and 13th lines. In the list compiled by I. Chopin in 1831 of the 59 villages of the Goycha district that were considered suitable for living at that time and in the documents relating to the subsequent periods, none of these villages are named.

The toponym is derived from the word altun, which means "red in the names of volcanic rocks", and the words takht (takhta), which means "high plain", "plain", "plain located in the mountains", "plain between two valleys" in Azerbaijani. It is a complex toponym formed on the basis of the relief.