Temple of Garni
TNMM 100
The temple was built in the second half of the first century B.C. and dedicated to a heathen god, probably to Mithra, the god of the sun whose figure stood in the depth of the sanctuary (naos). After Christianity had been proclaimed the state religion in Armenia in 301, the temple was probably used as a summer residence of the kings. A chronicle describes it as «a house of coolness».
Thirty-two kilometers southeast of the city of Yerevan stands the reconstructed pagan temple of Garni. The area around Garni has been settled since Neolithic times and archaeologists have found Urartian inscriptions dating back to the 8th century BC. An early temple at the site was built in the second half of the first century BC and was probably dedicated to Mithra (Mihr in Armenian), the Persian Zoroastrian god of the sun.
In the 1st century AD, the Armenian King Trdates I built the Garni temple. The temple was dedicated to Helios, the Roman god of the sun. After Christianity was adopted in Armenia in the early 4th century, most pagan monuments were destroyed or abandoned. Garni, however, was preserved at the request of the sister of King Trdates II and used as a summer residence for Armenian royalty. Several constructions and buildings have been identified within the enclosed area, including a two-story royal summer palace, a bath complex, a church built in AD 897, a cemetery, and the site's most famous and best preserved structure, a Greco-Roman temple built with 24 columns. In recent years another theory has been put forward. It has been suggested that the building may actually be identified as the tomb of an Armeno-Roman ruler, probably Sohaemus. If that were the case, its construction would be dated to AD 175. The temple was eventually destroyed in 1386 by Timur Lenk. Most of the original building blocks remained at the site until the 20th century, allowing the building to be reconstructed between 1969 and 1975.
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