Garni Temple

Garni Temple stands on a triangular promontory above the Azat River gorge in Garni village, Kotayk Province, Armenia, about 30 km east of Yerevan. It is the only standing Greco-Roman colonnaded building in Armenia and the Caucasus. The temple is generally dated to the 1st century AD and is attributed to King Tiridates I of Armenia, who ruled after receiving his crown from the Roman emperor Nero in 66 AD. It was a pagan temple, probably dedicated to the sun god Mihr, and is built in the Ionic order, with 24 columns around a raised podium reached by a stair. The structure is made of basalt blocks joined with iron clamps set in lead. The fortress of Garni, on the same promontory, was a royal summer residence and defensive site from the Hellenistic period, and its remains include a Roman-style bathhouse with a mosaic floor depicting sea creatures and a Greek inscription, dated to the 3rd century. After Armenia adopted Christianity in 301 AD, the temple was likely converted into a royal summer residence and survived until a 1679 earthquake destroyed it. Soviet archaeologists reconstructed it between 1969 and 1975 using the original stones, which were found on site, in a process called anastylosis. Nearby are the ruins of a church, a royal palace and a Georgian-style fortress wall. The site offers views over the basalt columns of the Symphony of Stones in the gorge below. Visitors can walk around the temple and enter the bath house. A visit usually takes an hour, and many travellers combine it with the nearby Geghard Monastery. Today the temple is used for cultural events and pagan-revival ceremonies, and the site is managed as a state museum-reserve.