Khachkar (Armenian Cross-Stone)
The khachkar is the Armenian cross-stone, a freestanding stele carved from a single slab of local stone, most often the volcanic tuff of the Armenian plateau, its face dominated by an ornamented cross set over a rosette or a wheel of eternity. Around the cross the carver fills the stone with interlace, vine scrolls, leaves, pomegranates and birds, and the whole composition is framed in a decorated border; the earliest dated example bears the year 879, and the art reached its richest period from the thirteenth century. Khachkars were raised as tombstones, memorials for the dead, church dedicati