Cathedral of Ani

Listen for a moment. Out here, on this open plateau, the main sound is the wind. It moves across dry grass and loose stone, and it carries no traffic noise at all. In front of you rises a broad block of reddish stone. It is warm in colour, slightly rough, and patched in places with paler blocks. The roof is broken open to the sky. This is the Cathedral of Ani, and for about a thousand years it has stood near the edge of a deep river gorge.

It helps to picture what once surrounded you. Ani was the capital of a medieval Armenian kingdom ruled by the Bagratid dynasty, a royal family that governed much of Armenia around the turn of the first millennium. This empty plateau was then a crowded city. It had markets, palaces, walls, and many churches. Today Ani lies inside Turkey, close to the border with Armenia. The ruins are spread across the grass, and the cathedral is the largest of the buildings that still stand.

Work on the cathedral began in the late tenth century under King Smbat the Second. He did not live to see it finished. The building was completed in 1001, under the patronage of Queen Katranide, the wife of King Gagik the First. Her name is recorded in a long Armenian inscription carved into the stone of the south wall. A royal woman's name is written into the fabric of the city's greatest church. That is a small detail, and most visitors walk past it.

The architect was a man named Trdat. His career has a remarkable twist. Before he finished this cathedral, Trdat was called to Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. An earthquake in 989 had damaged the great dome of Hagia Sophia, then the most important church in the Christian East. Trdat helped to repair it. So the master who shaped this building had also worked on one of the most famous domes in the world.

Now look at the outside walls. They are lined with tall, slender blind arches. These are arches built flat against the wall, with no openings behind them. They run in a steady rhythm around the building and give the heavy stone a light, vertical feel. Between some of them you will see deep, narrow niches cut into the wall in a sharp V-shape. These niches are a hallmark of Armenian church design. They also mark where the interior spaces meet behind the wall.

Here is the first surprise. Inside, the arches are slightly pointed rather than round. The piers that hold them up are not simple pillars. They are bundles of thinner columns, grouped together and rising toward the vaults. Many historians have noticed that these features look very similar to Gothic architecture. Gothic style developed in Western Europe more than a century later. This cathedral was not a direct model for Gothic builders, but it shows that similar ideas appeared here very early.

Look up, if you can see into the interior. The great central dome is gone. It stood on a high drum, a round wall that lifted it above the roof. An earthquake in 1319 brought it down. Since then the centre of the church has been open to the weather. On a clear day, light falls straight into the space where the dome once was. On a grey day, the sky inside looks the same colour as the stone.

The second surprise concerns the building's identity. In 1064, the Seljuk Turks captured Ani. The Seljuks were a Turkic dynasty that ruled a large Muslim empire in the region. They turned the cathedral into a mosque, and it became known as the Fethiye Mosque, which means the Mosque of the Conquest. Later, Georgian forces and their Armenian allies took the city, and the building became a church again. One stone structure served two faiths in turn.

Ani slowly lost its importance over the following centuries. Trade routes shifted. Invasions and earthquakes damaged the city. Families moved away, and in time the capital became a ghost town on the plateau. The cathedral survived better than most buildings around it. But damage continued into modern times. A strong earthquake in 1988 caused one corner of the building to collapse. You can still see where the stonework breaks off and where newer support work has been added.

In 2016, the archaeological site of Ani was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List. Since then, restoration teams have worked to stabilise the cathedral. Their goal is to keep the walls standing rather than to rebuild what was lost. As you walk around the building, notice the difference between old and new stone. The original blocks are cut very carefully and fit tightly together. The repairs are often slightly different in tone, so the history of damage stays visible.

Now walk a little way from the cathedral and turn back to face it. From a distance, its shape becomes clearer. It is close to a rectangle on the outside, but inside the plan is built around a central space under the lost dome. Behind you, the land drops steeply into the gorge of the Akhurian River. The river forms the border here. On the far side lies Armenia, so close that you can see its fields and hills.

You may hear Ani called the city of a thousand and one churches. This is a popular nickname, not a precise count. Still, it reflects something true. As you look around the plateau, you can see the remains of many churches and chapels, some almost whole and some reduced to a few walls. The cathedral sits among them. It once stood above a crowded skyline of domes, towers, and roofs.

Before you leave, stand still for one more minute. Put your hand on the stone if you are allowed close. It feels cool in the morning and warm by late afternoon. Look at the line of blind arches, the dark V-shaped niches, and the open space where the dome once was. The wind is still moving across the grass. As you walk on toward the other ruins, glance back once. The cathedral looks smaller from far away, but it still holds its place on the plateau.