<p>Noravank, Mother of God Church, western side.
</p><p>Noravank (literally "new monastery") is a 13th-century Armenian monastery, near the town of Yeghegnadzor, Armenia. The monastery is best known for its two-storey Surb Astvatsatsin (Holy Mother of God) church, which grants access to the second floor by way of a narrow stone-made staircase jutting out from the face of building.
</p><p>Noravank was founded in 1205 by Bishop Hovhannes, a former abbot of Vahanavank near the present-day city of Kapan in Syunik. The monastic complex includes the church of Surb Karapet, Surb Grigor chapel with a vaulted hall, and the church of Surb Astvatsatsin (Holy Mother of God). Ruins of various civil buildings and khachkars are found both inside and outside of the compound walls. The fortress walls surrounding the complex were built in the 17th–18th centuries.
</p><p>The grandest structure is Surb Astvatsatsin (Holy Mother of God) Church, also called Burtelashen (Burtel's construction) in the honour of Prince Burtel Orbelian, its financier. It is situated to the south-east of the Surb Karapet church. Surb Astvatsatsin was completed in 1339, a masterpiece of the talented sculptor and miniaturist Momik, who designed it, and was also his last work. Near the church there is his tomb khachkar, small and modestly decorated, dated the same year.
</p><p>The Holy Mother of God Church is a memorial church. Its ground floor, rectangular in plan, was a family burial vault; the floor above, cross-shaped in plan, was a memorial temple crowned with a multi-columned rotunda.
</p><p>The western portal is decorated with special splendour. An important role in its decoration is played by the cantilevered stairs that lead to the upper level, with profiled butts to the steps. The doorways are framed with broad rectangular plaitbands, with ledges in the upper part, with columns, fillets and strips of various, mostly geometrical, fine and intricate patterns. There are representations of doves and sirens with women's crowned heads. Such reliefs were widely used in fourteenth-century Armenian art and in earlier times in architecture, miniatures and works of applied art, on various vessels and bowls. The entrance tympanums are decorated with bas-reliefs showing, on the lower tympanium, the Holy Virgin with the Child and Archangels Gabriel and Michael at her sides, and, on the upper tympanium, a half-length representation of Christ and figures of the Apostles Peter and Paul. 
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(source: <a class="external text" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noravank">en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noravank</a>)
<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.flickr.com/people/67769030@N07">Arian Zwegers</a> from Brussels, Belgium
CC BY 2.0
<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/azwegers/35283103663/">Noravank</a>