Jessy Chahine
Special to The Daily Star
Except for a few travelers’ remarks, Ani, the great ancient Armenian city, remains unknown.
“It’s a very tragic and sad experience to visit a city like that,” Arda Arsenian Ekmekji said. “I remember feeling mixed emotions of happiness and sadness … while visiting the city last August. I was happy because I felt that my visit was like a pilgrimage to my homeland. And I was sad because Ani was so abandoned.”
On her way back home to Lebanon, Ekmekji had only one thing in mind: to talk about Ani’s splendor. Her wish came true on Wednesday when she gave an illustrated lecture in the American University of Beirut’s museum, called Ani: the City of 1,001 Churches.
Ekmekji, the dean of arts and sciences at Haigazian University, who has a PhD in archaeology, started by retracing the great city’s past, showing slides of the city today.
Ani became known in its own right around the middle of the 9th century, as the Abbasid Empire weakened its hold on historic Armenia. Originally ruled through local princes, Armenia gradually witnessed the emergence of a dominant family dynasty, the Pakradounis known in foreign literature as the Bagratis. In 855 the Abbasid Caliph al-Mutawakkil recognized Ashot Pakradouni as the Shahnshah meaning king of kings of the Armenians by sending him a crown from Baghdad. At the same time Basil I, the emperor of Byzantine, did the same. Thus the kingdom was firmly recognized by both rivals.
In the year 971, the Bagratid King Ashot III transferred his capital from Kars to Ani.
At this time Ani was no more than a fortress town built around a citadel hill. But Ashot constructed new city walls and the city grew to become a crossroad for merchant caravans, controlling trade routes between Byzantium, Persia, Syria and central Asia. Merchants and craftsmen flocked to Ani from Armenia’s older cities, accompanied by a flow of population from rural areas of Armenia.
“By the 11th century, the population of Ani was perhaps as high as 200,000 and its wealth and renown was such that it was known as ‘the city of 1001 churches,’” said Ekmekji.
For four centuries, Ani enjoyed a glorious history and civilization. But during the 14th century, Ani began its decline into oblivion. By the beginning of the 19th century, the region was inhabited by nomadic tribes. Miles of green grass still stretch across the hills of the city today, as Ekmekji’s talk showed, with a clear blue sky over the ruins, shielding them from time and loneliness.
In this no man’s land, the worn yet beautiful hulks of the various churches and castles lay still and quiet. The city’s structure is time’s only survivor: Each church occupies the heart of the city’s streets.
“With the fall of Ani under Russian domination in 1878, excavations were started under the supervision of the St. Petersburg Academy of Scientists,” Ekmekji said.
The most important edifices they discovered were the cathedral, and the churches of Gadik the Redeemer, St. Gregory and Togran Honents.
“As you see, all of these churches had beautiful frescos and scriptures on their walls,” the lecturer added, illustrating the point with projections. In 1917 the city fell under Turkish rule and the site was totally abandoned until 1992, left to the mercy of natural disasters, vandalism and marauders.
Of the objects which were salvaged, most are today in the Yerevan State Museum.
The site lies on the Turkish-Armenian border. As such, it’s a military zone and tourists need permits to visit the site and cannot take photos.
In 1992, the Ani Project was launched by the then-mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac, and the Armenian General Benevolent Union to turn Ani into a UNESCO-protected site. The Turkish government refused access, and decided to undertake the restoration and excavation of the site themselves.
As French president in 2001, Chirac pledged to provide funds and French archaeologists and restorers to supervise the city’s excavation, however this still has not been implemented. “Princess Ani still awaits for her prince charming to rescue her from her torpor,” Ekmekji sadly concluded.
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