Ani Attractions

Here, in an area of gently undulating treeless steppe, a rock plateau roughly in the shape of an acute-angled triangle lies bounded by deep river gorges on all three sides - the valleys of the Bostanlar Çayi (Alaca Su = "bright water") to the west, the Migmig Çayi (Valley of the Flowers) to the northeast, and the Arpa Çayi (Barley Stream) to the southeast. Only on its north side is the plateau linked to the surrounding tableland; secured against attack from this direction by walls, it is hard to imagine a more strategic site for a medieval town.

Although a special pass was formerly needed for visiting the ruined town, since 1991 regulations have been relaxed somewhat. If necessary permission can be obtained from the police authorities in Kars (Emniyet Müdürlügü) using forms available from the tourist information office (Danisma Bürosu). Because the site is right on the Armenian frontier (the Arpa Çayi forms the actual boundary) the use of cameras may be forbidden depending on the political situation at the time. Photographic equipment must then be left at the police post in the village of Soylu. Otherwise the taking of photographs is permitted on the site, though not without restriction. Photographs, sometimes rather poor in quality, are also available from the museum in Kars.

Because of the military presence (observation post) there is no public access to part of the site, in particular to some of the churches along the Arpa Çayi, to the citadel or to the southernmost section of the town. Most of the rest of the ruins can be reached by following a made-up signposted path round the site.

History

The southern tip of the basalt plateau was probably settled as early as the Chalcolithic period and early Bronze Age; it is likely that the Urartians had a fortress there too. In the eighth century the Bagratids (from southwest Georgia) extended and strengthened their rule, entering into treaties with the Arabs. In 722 the settlement which had grown up around the fort passed into the possession of their Armenian line. Under Ashot Msaker (809-27) it blossomed into a town which Ashot III (953-77) later chose for his seat. Then in 961/62, with the blessing of Ananias, Catholicos of Armenia, Ani became the Bagratid capital in place of Kars, Ashot taking the title of king. As first great patron of the infant metropolis, Ashot erected a number of public and ecclesiastical buildings, simultaneously encouraging commerce and trade. Ani developed into a flourishing cultural and economic center. At the height of its splendor the town is thought to have boasted a population numbering 100,000, and as many as 1,000 churches. Such was the pressure on space that some inhabitants were forced to live in cave dwellings in the Alaca Suyu gorge. Smbat II (977-89) fortified the town with walls and in 993, by adding substantially to its already considerable endowment of ecclesiastical buildings, his successor Gagik I (989-1020) induced the Armenian catholicos to make Ani his seat (replacing Arkina). The Armenian Empire, however, was even then on the verge of decline, Ani - and Armenia generally - soon to be cast in the role of bastion against a succession of Seljuk, Turkoman and Mongol invaders. In 1048, just three years after the first Byzantine governor had been installed, Turkoman nomads appeared at the gates. Having fallen to Alp Arslan in 1064, Ani found itself with a Seljuk governor Seddat Ogullari. Although he and his successor, the Emir Seddadi Abul Asvâroglu Menüçehr, attempted to stem the tide with a substantial program of new building, there was large-scale migration from Armenia to Cilicia. In the 12th century the kings of Georgia enjoyed periodic success against the Seljuks (defeat of the Emir of Erzurum in 1162). As a result, at the end of the century, under the feudal princes of the Armenian-Georgian Zakhariad family, Ani experienced a second flowering which not even the sack of the town in 1236 by the Mongols under Genghis Khan's son Oktai Khan could halt. The town grew to be a provincial capital and, despite a devastating earthquake in 1319 which caused many people to leave, was not finally abandoned until the 16th century It was rediscovered by European scholars in the first half of the 19th century

Excavations

H. F. B. Lynch's plan (1894) of the ruins was based on the findings of the earliest excavations, conducted by Hermann Abich in 1844. Further research was then carried out by the Russians in the period between the Russo-Turkish War (of 1877/78) and the onset of the First World War. More recent investigations by the Turkish Historical Society and Kemal Balkan, in 1944 and 1965, brought Bronze Age and Seljuk finds to light.