Garni Temple

Garni is the one classical colonnaded building that survives anywhere in Armenia — and indeed in the whole territory of the former Soviet Union. It stands on the edge of a triangular promontory at about 1,400 m, where the ground drops sheer into the gorge of the Azat River, with the Gegham mountains rising behind. Built of grey-blue local basalt rather than marble, it follows the Ionic order: twenty-four columns, each 6.54 m tall, surround a small cella on a raised podium, and the whole building is only about 10.7 m high. Its compact, harmonious proportions have invited comparison with the Maison Carrée at Nîmes.

Look closely at the details. The blocks, some weighing up to five tonnes, were laid without mortar and held together with iron and bronze clamps. A frieze of acanthus scrolls runs around the building, lion heads project from the cornice, and on the pedestals flanking the stairway the figure of Atlas strains as if carrying the temple on his shoulders. The stair itself is unusual: nine steps, each about twice the normal height, so that reaching the doorway takes a deliberate effort — and the facade faces north rather than east. Inside, the cella is lit only by the tall doorway and an opening in the roof.

What the building was is still debated. The traditional view, based on a Greek inscription found in 1945, attributes it to King Tiridates I around AD 77, after his coronation by Nero in Rome, as a temple to the sun god Mihr; other scholars read it as the tomb of a Romanised Armenian king of the second century. Either way, it alone escaped the destruction of pagan shrines after Armenia's conversion to Christianity. It collapsed in the earthquake of 1679, and its scattered stones were reassembled in 1969–75 under the architect Alexander Sahinian, using anastylosis. The fortress around it keeps a Urartian cuneiform inscription, the ruins of a Roman bath with a mosaic floor, and the foundations of a medieval round church; below, in the Azat gorge, walls of basalt columns known as the "Symphony of Stones" form one of the most striking natural sights in the country.

Getting there

Garni lies in Kotayk Province, about 30 km east of central Yerevan; the nearest airport is Zvartnots International (EVN), about 28 km away in a straight line. The road from Yerevan climbs through the village of Garni to the fortress gate.