Sahakduxt was an Armenia

Armenia

Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...

n composer of hymns, poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

, and pedagogue who lived in the 8th century. An ascetic, she lived in a cave in the Garni Valley, near present-day Yerevan

Yerevan

Yerevan is the capital and largest city of Armenia and one of the world's oldest continuously-inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Yerevan is the administrative, cultural, and industrial center of the country...

; there she produced ecclesiastical poems as well as liturgical chants. Of these, the only one to survive is Srbuhi Mariam ("St. Mary"), a nine-stanza acrostic

Acrostic

An acrostic is a poem or other form of writing in which the first letter, syllable or word of each line, paragraph or other recurring feature in the text spells out a word or a message. As a form of constrained writing, an acrostic can be used as a mnemonic device to aid memory retrieval. A famous...

 verse. It is believed that many of her hymns were dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Some of them are supposed to have helped to further shape the genre in subsequent centuries. Sahakduxt is also known to have taught lay music lovers and clerical students a number of sacred melodies; this she did while seated behind a curtain, as the mores of the period required.

Her brother was the music theorist Stepannos Syunetsi.