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Construction
Construction of Garni Temple
sacred architecture
- 1st century – 1st century CE
- Middle East
Construction
sacred architecture
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The Garni Temple is a classical colonnaded structure in the village of Garni, in central Armenia, around 30 km (19 mi) east of Yerevan. Built in the Ionic order, it is the best-known structure and symbol of pre-Christian Armenia. Considered an eastern outpost of the Greco-Roman world, it is the only largely preserved Hellenistic building in the former Soviet Union.
It is conventionally identified as a pagan temple to the sun god Mihr (Mithra) built by King Tiridates I in the first century AD. A competing hypothesis sees it as a second century tomb. It collapsed in a 1679 earthquake, but much of its fragments remained on the site. Renewed interest in the 19th century led to excavations in the early and mid-20th century. It was reconstructed in 1969–75, using the anastylosis technique. It is one of the main tourist attractions in Armenia and the central shrine of Armenian neopaganism.
The site is in the village of Garni, in Armenia's Kotayk Province, around 30 km (19 mi) east of capital Yerevan, at 1,400 m (4,600 ft) above sea level. The temple is at the edge of a triangular promontory rising above the ravine of the Azat River and the Gegham mountains. It is a part of the fortress of Garni, one of Armenia's oldest, that was strategically significant for the defense of the major cities in the Ararat plain. Besides the temple, the site contains a Bronze Age cyclopean masonry wall, a cuneiform inscription by king Argishti I of Urartu (who called it Giarniani), a Roman bath with a partly preserved mosaic floor with a Greek inscription, ruins of palace, other "paraphernalia of the Greco-Roman world", the medieval round church of St. Sion (Zion), and other objects (e.g., medieval khachkars). In the first century, Tacitus mentioned castellum Gorneas as a major fortress in his Annals. Tim Cornell and John Matthews classify Garni, with its classical building, as "the most easterly point reached by the Romans".
The dating and function of the structure remain subjects of ongoing scholarly debate. Christina Maranci describes it as an Ionic structure with "unclear function", suggesting it may have been a funerary monument or royal tomb rather than a temple.
Remains of an older sanctuary were discovered under its foundations, which has been interpreted as an Urartian temple.
The prevailing view, especially among Armenian scholars, attributes its construction to king Tiridates I around 77 AD. This date derives from a Greek inscription, discovered in 1945, naming Helios Tiridates as the founder, stating it was built in the eleventh year of his reign. While Movses Khorenatsi attributed it to Tiridates III, most scholars now favor Tiridates I. This dating connects to Tiridates's 66 AD visit to Rome, where Emperor Nero crowned him following the peace treaty ending the Parthian-Roman war over Armenia. Nero provided 50 million drachmas and Roman craftsmen to help rebuild the capital Artaxata destroyed by Roman general Corbulo. Its construction may have occurred during this reconstruction period.
In Armenia, the temple is commonly believed to have been dedicated to Mihr, the sun god in the Zoroastrian-influenced Armenian mythology and the equivalent of Mithra. Tiridates, like other Armenian monarchs, considered Mihr his patron. Some scholars argue that, given the historical context in which the temple was constructed—after his coronation in Rome—it would be logical to assume that Tiridates dedicated the temple to his patron god.
Scholars differ on who built the structure: Telfer attributed it to Greek workmen, Fetvadjian to Roman architects, and Maranci proposed involvement of imperial Roman workmen. In contrast, Nersessian and Harutyunyan argued that local craftsmen, skilled in basalt carving, were responsible.
Not all scholars agree that the structure was a temple. Among early sceptics, Kamilla Trever suggested in 1947 that it was built between 115-117 AD when Armenia was briefly declared a Roman province under Trajan, as such occasions typically involved building temples housing emperor statues. However, she later concluded that if the temple were solely for imperial cult worship, it would likely have been destroyed after the end of Roman rule.
In 1982 Richard D. Wilkinson suggested that the building is a tomb, probably constructed c. 175 AD in honor of one of the Romanized kings of Armenia of the late 2nd century. This theory is based on a comparison to Graeco-Roman buildings of western Asia Minor (e.g. Nereid Monument, Belevi Mausoleum, Mausoleum at Halicarnassus), the discovery of nearby graves that date to about that time, and the discovery of a few marble pieces of the Asiatic sarcophagus style. Wilkinson furthermore states that there is no direct evidence linking the structure to Mithras or Mihr, and that the Greek inscription attributed to Tiridates I probably refers to the fortress and not to the colonnaded structure. He also notes that it is unlikely that a pagan temple would survive destruction during Armenia's 4th-century conversion to Christianity when all other such temples were destroyed.
Wilkinson's theory has found some support, especially outside Armenia. James R. Russell finds the view of the structure being a temple of Mihr baseless and is skeptical that the Greek inscription refers to the temple. He suggested that the "splendid mausoleum" was erected by Romans living in Armenia. Russell agreed with Wilkinson's interpretation that it was a 2nd-century tomb, "possibly of one of the Romanized kings of Armenia", such as Sohaemus, and that it is "unique for the country and testifies to a particularly strong Roman presence." Felix Ter-Martirosov also believed it was built in the latter half of the 2nd century. Robert H. Hewsen argued, based on the construction of a church in the 7th century next to it rather than in its place, that the building was "more likely the tomb of one of the Roman-appointed kings of Armenia", such as Tiridates I or Sohaemus (r. 140–160).
In the early fourth century, when King Tiridates III adopted Christianity as Armenia's state religion, all pagan places of worship in the country were destroyed by Gregory the Illuminator. Scholars regard it as the only pagan, Hellenistic, or Greco-Roman (classical) structure to have survived the widespread destruction. Scholars continue to debate why it was exempted from destruction.
According to Movses Khorenatsi a "cooling-off house" (tun hovanots) was built within the fortress of Garni for Khosrovidukht, the sister of Tiridates III. Some scholars believe the temple was thus turned into a royal summer house. The structure presumably underwent some changes. Cult statue(s) in the cella were removed, the opening in the roof for skylight was closed, and the entrance was transformed and adjusted for residence. Ter-Martirosov argued that after Armenia's Christianization, it was initially a royal shrine, but after Khosrovidukht's death c. 325/326 it was transformed into a Christian mausoleum dedicated to her. Hamlet Petrosyan and Zhores Khachatryan rejected the postulated Christianization of the temple. Dickran Kouymjian also rejected its use as a Christian building.
Zhores Khachatryan argues that it underwent depaganization and was thereafter seen as a fine structure within the royal palace complex. A 2014 study by Armenuhi Magarditchian, based on a newly discovered early Armenian inscription inside the cella, suggested that the structure was transformed into a baptistery between the fifth and seventh centuries.
In the Middle Ages, variously dated between the 7th and 10th centuries, a round church of St. Sion (Zion) was built immediately west of it. Their relationship remains unclear, but Maranci suggested that "it seems likely that one did exist". Hewsen suggested that the church was built next to it rather than in its place because it was a tomb, not a pagan temple.
The walls of the temple bear six Arabic inscriptions in the Kufic style and one in Persian in the naskh script, which have all been paleographically dated to the ninth to tenth centuries. They commemorate the capture of the fortress and may point to the temple's conversion into a mosque. On its entryway, there is a large Armenian inscription from 1291, left by Princess Khoshak of Garni and her son, Amir Zakare. Khoshak, the granddaughter of Ivane I Zakarian, recorded the exemption of the people of Garni from taxes paid in wine, goats, and sheep.
Medieval Christian Armenian chroniclers referred to it as the "throne of Trdat" (Տրդատայ թախտ, Trdata t‘akht). The 13th-century historian Kirakos Gandzaketsi called it the "marvellous throne of Trdat". In the last major written record about the temple before its collapse, poet Simeon of Aparan penned a lament in 1593. He grieved the past greatness of Armenia and mentioned the number of its columns and steps, and noted the use of iron clamps and lead. It was also visited by Grigor Daranaghtsi (Kamakhetsi) in the early 1600s.
The entire colonnade collapsed during a devastating earthquake on June 4, 1679, with the epicenter in the Garni Gorge. The collapse is attested by the contemporary chronicler Zakaria Kanakertsi. It split diagonally and fell toward the northeast, with architectonic materials falling as far as 50 m (160 ft). The pedestal, the lower part of the cella, and the column bases remained standing, with the pedestal being undamaged. Its location on a promontory flanked on two sides by deep gorges, while visually striking, is seismically unfavorable because earthquake forces are intensified there.
It stood for over sixteen centuries, likely due to its unusually sturdy construction for its modest scale and its substantial podium, which provided a solid foundation. Other researchers have attributed its seismic longevity to its deep volcanic slag foundations. Geological surveys found that the pedestal rests on a layer of scoria that sits on top of solid breccia and basalt, providing the structure stability. It was however weakened decades earlier, during the wars of Shah Abbas of Iran, when iron clamps and lead fillings were removed to cast bullets.
European travelers Jean Chardin, who visited Armenia in 1673 before the earthquake, and James Morier, who visited in the 1810s, both incorrectly described it through local informants since they never actually visited the site. Robert Ker Porter, who visited in the late 1810s, described what he saw as a "confused pile of beautiful fragments ... all mingled together in broken disorder." He provided a drawing of the site.
Another European to visit and document the ruins of the temple was Frédéric DuBois de Montperreux, who proposed a reconstruction of the building in his 1839 book, which Wilkinson described as "rather inaccurate". Montperreux, who visited in March 1834, wrote that the Armenians respect the building so greatly that "no one among them would want to remove a stone, a fragment of cornice for his own use, much less let others do it." John Buchan Telfer, who visited in the 1870s, removed a fragment of the architrave bearing a lion head, which he bequeathed to the British Museum, where it remains to this day.
In 1880, the Russian archaeologist Aleksey Uvarov, possibly inspired by the contemporaneous relocation of the Pergamon Altar from Asia Minor to Germany, proposed that the stones be moved to Tiflis and be reconstructed there according to de Montpereux's plan. Lori Khatchadourian suggests that the proposal "could be read as an attempt at co-opting Armenia's Roman past to the glory of Russia through the relocation of its most iconic monument to the nearest administrative center." The governor of Erivan, citing technical difficulties with moving its parts, did not implement the plan and the project was abandoned.
Nikolai Marr led the first professional excavation in 1909–11 along with Yakov I. Smirnov and architect Konstantin K. Romanov. Kamilla Trever later wrote that these works were not archaeological excavations in the strict sense, but rather consisted mostly of uncovering, cleaning up and categorizing the fragments. Works were stopped due to lack of funds and the results, still unpublished, were reported to the Russian Archaeological Society. Romanov proposed a reconstruction of the structure in 1912 (published in 1934).
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