The Garni Temple

 

The Garni Temple is quite simply a breathtaking piece of architecture and should be seen and experienced by all potential tourists who come to Armenia, therefore you could say it is a “must see”… It was built in the first century AD by the then king Tiridates.  It is the only pagan temple in Armenia that survived the Christianization of the country in the early 4th century.  The wow factor being that it is also the only "Greco-Roman colonnaded building" in Armenia and the entire former Soviet Union which was then 15 communistic countries. 

 

Garni Temple is situated at an elevation of 1396 m. In 1679 tragedy struck when an earthquake hit the area and the temple collapsed. It was reconstructed in the former soviet times between 1969 and 1974 but still commands an aura about it. The temple is surrounded by an area of natural beauty. The journey to Garni in conjunction with visiting Gerghard takes you on a journey with stunning views of Ararat Mountain ascending to its lofty heights. Therefore you will not be spoilt for choice for taking many wonderful photographs of this particular area of Armenia.

 

The first traces of human occupation date back to the 3rd millennium BC and are concentrated in an easily defensible terrain at one of the bends of the Azat River. In the 8th century BC the area was conquered by the Urartian king Argishti I. The first literary testimony to the existence of a fortress on the spur crowning the site of Garni comes from the Roman historian Tacitus and dates from the middle of the 1st century AD. Excavation of the existing remains was conducted for a brief period in 1909–1910 and was later resumed (1949) by Soviet archaeologists.

 

The results have shown that the actual fortification had been erected much earlier, probably sometime in the 3rd century BC[10] as a summer residence for the Armenian Orontid and Artaxiad royal dynasties.[11] The fortress of Garni (Latin: Gorneas) became the last refuge of king Mithridates of Armenia, where he and his family were assassinated by his son in law and nephew Rhadamistus.[12] Several constructions and buildings have been identified within the enclosed area, including a two-storey royal summer palace, a bath complex, a church built in AD 897,[11] a cemetery[10] and the site's most famous and best preserved edifice, a peristyle Greco-Roman temple built in the Ionic order.