National Geographic History - 03.2020 - 04.2020

DISCOVERIES

E

ast of the Turkish

city of Kars lies a

complex of lonely

medieval churches.

Octagonal towers,

crumbling walls, and fall-

en columns lay scattered

across vast grasslands. In

the gorge that drops away

to the Akhuryan River—

which forms Turkey’s

border with the modern

state of Armenia—is an

ancient bridge, broken in the

middle.

These ruins are all that

remain of Ani, the cosmo-

politan capital of medieval

Armenia, one of the earliest

kingdoms to adopt Chris-

tianity as its state religion

in the early a.d. 300s. The

site of a fifth-century for-

tification, Ani was chosen

to be Armenia’s capital

in the 10th century. It be-

came home to as many as

100,000 people, and was so

richly endowed with sacred

buildings that it came to be

known as the “city of 1,001

churches.”

Its strategic position

along trade routes between

the Black Sea and the Caspi-

an Sea made it an attractive

possession, condemning it

to centuries of invasion—

and eventually, a long period

of abandonment.

Clash of Empires

Following its absorption into

the Ottoman Empire in the

16th century, Ani remained

a distant memory until the

early 1800s, when European

travelers began to visit the

site of the medieval city. The

ruins of Ani were located on

a geopolitical fault line at the

edges of the Ottoman, Per-

sian, and Russian Empires.

Visiting the remains of the

city was risky as political

tensions were running high.

Nevertheless, some vis-

itors carried out hasty

surveys and aroused in-

terest among scholars. In

1817 Scottish diplomat and

traveler Robert Ker Porter

passed through and record-

ed his impressions. While

remaining vigilant in a place

whose “gloomy ruins” were

perfect hiding places for

“sanguinary freebooters,”

Ker Porter’s account trans-

mitted his excitement: “On

entering the city, I found the

whole surface of the ground

covered with broken capi-

tals, highly ornamented

friezes; and other remains

of ancient magnificence.”

Some of the churches,

he wrote, were more intact

than others, but even they

“are as solitary as all the

others structures, on which

The Abandoned

Churches of Ani

Its glorious spell as the capital of medieval Armenia ended in

centuries of conquest and massacres, but Ani still stands proud

on one of the world’s most tense political fault lines.

THE CHURCH of

St. Gregory the

Illuminator in Ani was

built in 1215 alongside

the Akhuryan River, the

modern border between

Turkey and Armenia.

FLORIAN NEUKIRCHEN/AGE FOTOSTOCK

ILLUMINATED GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN, CREATED BY SARGIS, A 14TH-CENTURY

ARMENIAN ILLUMINATOR. METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK

Under King Gagik I, Ani

reaches the peak of its

splendor. In the decades

following his death, the

city begins a slow decline.

Ani falls to the Mongols

after a devastating attack.

Loss of trade and an

earthquake in 1319 will

lead to its abandonment.

Ani is absorbed into the

Ottoman Empire. It is

largely forgotten until it

comes under Russian

control in the late 1800s.

961 1001 1226 1579

King Ashot III of Armenia

makes Ani his capital. The

town grows wealthy, and

the king begins building

sacred structures.

ALBUM/METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART