Kingdom of Vaspurakan

The Kingdom of Vaspurakan was a medieval Armenian kingdom centred on Lake Van, in what is now eastern Turkey and northwestern Iran, named after Vaspurakan, a province of historic Greater Armenia. It was ruled by the Artsruni dynasty, an ancient Armenian noble family that had built up its power base in Vaspurakan during the ninth century as Arab rule waned. In 908, Gagik I Artsruni was recognized as king by the Sajid ruler Yusuf, and allied with him against the Bagratuni-ruled Kingdom of Armenia; after the Bagratuni king Smbat was killed by Yusuf in 914, however, Gagik switched sides and allied with the new Bagratuni king Ashot II to defeat the Arabs. The kingdom reached its zenith around 929 under Gagik I, who even used the title of King of Armenia and undertook a series of construction projects, particularly on the island of Aghtamar in Lake Van, where his palace and the famous cathedral of the Holy Cross stood. For a little over a century Vaspurakan competed and cooperated with the Bagratuni kingdom, until its last king ceded the kingdom to the Byzantine Empire in 1021.