Photo Essay: The Ruins of Ani
By Daniel C. Waugh
The ruins of the once great Armenian city of Ani, now in Turkey, overlook the sharply etched ravine of the Akhurian/Arpa River which marks the international border. At one time a major route of the Silk Roads crossed here; the remains of its bridge can still be seen down in the ravine. Some of the ruins of Ani seem to teeter precariously at the edge of the gorge, waiting for the next earthquake or human infliction to send them to the fate of so many of the other structures that once comprised the “city of a thousand and one churches.” At its peak in the 11th century, Ani may have had well over 100,000 inhabitants.
The site saw much earlier habitation, evidenced by the discovery of ruins of a Zoroastrian fire temple. For a time beginning in the 10th century, Ani was the capital of the medieval Armenian kingdom and seat of the Catholicos, the head of the Armenian Church. It fell first to the Byzantine Empire and then to the Seljuk Turks, and for a time was ruled by the Georgians. Under the rule of other Turkish kingdoms, old structures were appropriated, some new ones built, and the great double walls of the outer fortifications were repaired. Beginning in the 13th century, after its conquest by the Mongols, the city gradually declined. Its last known period of occupation (but for a few modern squatters) was in the 18th century. The decay of its dramatic remains has been hastened by earthquakes, lightning strikes, looting and misguided efforts at “restoration” by Turkish authorities.
A great deal of what we know about medieval Ani is thanks to the work of Nikolai Marr, a Caucasus specialist in the Russian Academy of Sciences. Owing to the Russian Empire’s pre-World War I presence in this region, Marr was able to lead several seasons of serious excavations at Ani, revealing a great deal about the city’s early history.
To learn more about Ani, visit http://www.virtualani.org. The website describes Ani’s history and monuments, though it stridently denounces some of the Turkish state’s recent inflictions on the site.
Professor Emeritus Daniel Waugh is recently back from extensive study-travel in the Middle East thanks to support of a Mellon Emeritus Fellowship for his work on a book about the Silk Roads. His itineraries included northeastern Anatolia, following a historic route starting in Trabzon on the Black Sea coast and then going inland through Erzurum and Kars to Ani.
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The Ruins of Ani
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The checkerboard gate, through which the main cathedral can be seen. The various colors of the volcanic stone often were used to create striking designs.
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The Ruins of Ani
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The interior of Ani’s 10th-century walls, the ruins little altered by any restoration.
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The Ruins of Ani
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The interior of Ani’s 10th-century walls, the ruins little altered by any restoration.
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The Ruins of Ani
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A panorama of the Akhurian River gorge, looking from Ani across into Armenia. The panorama covers nearly 180 degrees from the early 11th-century cathedral on the left to the citadel and 13th century mosque on the right. Left of center are the remains of the “Silk Road Bridge.”
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The Ruins of Ani
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Detail of the carved decoration on the south façade of the main cathedral, which was begun in the late 10th century and completed some decades later. Its skilled architect was famous and was also hired to repair damage to the great Cathedral of Haghia Sophia in Constantinople.
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The Ruins of Ani
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The Church of the Redeemeer, completed around 1035 CE, has innovative architectural features and a circular plan (found also in some other Armenian churches). It was half destroyed by a lightning strike during a storm in the 1950s.
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The Ruins of Ani
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The early 13th century Church of St. Gregory was built with the sponsorship of a wealthy merchant, Tigran Honents, as part of a monastic complex.
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The Ruins of Ani
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The Church of St. Gregory is noteworthy for its extensive relief carvings on the exterior and for its murals. The dome, truncated now due to a partial collapse, contained a scene of the Ascension of Christ into heaven, below which are images of the prophets and Old Testament fathers.
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The Ruins of Ani
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The Church of the Holy Apostles from the first half of the 11th century. The uniquely arched ceiling inside the remains of the south narthex (porch) displays some of the best examples of the use of multicolored stone. The church also has some elements of Islamic architecture, not an unusual phenomenon in this once multicultural region.
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The Ruins of Ani
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At the edge of the ravine is a mosque, built during the period of Turkic rule between the late 11th and 13th centuries. The building has some of the elaborately decorated ceilings in which patterns have been created by the multi-colored stone.
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The Ruins of Ani
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Perhaps the most evocative of all the Ani churches, due to its location on a ledge part way down into the gorge of the Akhurian River, the Church of the Virgin Martyrs of St. Hripsime dates between the 11th and 13th centuries. Around it are the remains of buildings from a monastery or convent.
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The Ruins of Ani
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A village couple warming in the late afternoon sun at Oğuzlu, their house located next to the ruins of another medieval Armenian church. Many of the villages in this formerly Armenian region had impressive churches in the Middle Ages. Few remain and the Armenian population has been replaced by Turks and Kurds.
