Temple of Garni
Ionic colonnaded temple of the first century on a gorge-edge fortress site, with Roman baths nearby.
The temple stands on a triangular promontory above the Azat gorge, within the walls of the fortress of Garni, which was a summer residence of the Arsacid kings of Armenia. Built of grey basalt in the Greco-Roman manner, it is peripteral with twenty-four Ionic columns on a podium reached by nine steep steps. A Greek inscription found on the site names King Tiridates I and a date usually read as AD 77, although some scholars place the building earlier. It is the only colonnaded classical temple left standing in the South Caucasus.
The building survived the adoption of Christianity and later served as a royal summer hall, but an earthquake in 1679 brought it down. Its blocks lay on the slope until Soviet archaeologists, led by Alexander Sahinian, re-erected the temple using anastylosis between 1969 and 1975, replacing missing pieces with plain stone. The surrounding museum-reserve also takes in the fortress walls, the ruins of a Roman-style bath house with a coloured floor mosaic bearing a Greek inscription, and the foundations of a seventh-century church.
Highlights
- Twenty-four Ionic columns of grey basalt on a nine-step podium
- Roman bath house with a coloured floor mosaic and Greek inscription
- Fortress walls and remains of a royal summer palace
- Cliff-top setting above the basalt columns of the Azat gorge
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