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Monumentum

Temple of Garni

After Christianity was adopted, most pagan monuments were destroyed or abandoned. Garni, however, was preserved at the request of the sister of King Tiridates II and used as a summer residence for Armenian royalty.

  • Vigen Hakhverdyan 

  • Baldiri 

 
The New Mithraeum
16 Jul 2009
Updated on Jan 2022

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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

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