Sanahin
We spent three nights in the small town of Sanahin visiting its monastery and the neighboring monastery of Hagphat, which is on the other side of Debed Canyon but connected via a scenic day hike. While they likely had early medieval antecedents, the current complexes date to the tenth century when they became centers of scholarship under the royal patronage of the Bagratid and (later) Zakarid dynasty. Both complexes are Unesco World Heritage sites and are extremely well preserved with interesting buildings such as churches, gavits, scriptoriums, bell towers, refectories and spring houses. There are however no evident traces of dormitories for the hundreds of monks who once lived here, which must have been built of more ephemeral materials. Above, the Church of St. Amenaprkitch, built in the second half of the tenth century, Sanahin, Armenia.
Sanahin
We spent three nights in the small town of Sanahin visiting its monastery and the neighboring monastery of Hagphat, which is on the other side of Debed Canyon but connected via a scenic day hike. While they likely had early medieval antecedents, the current complexes date to the tenth century when they became centers of scholarship under the royal patronage of the Bagratid and (later) Zakarid dynasty. Both complexes are Unesco World Heritage sites and are extremely well preserved with interesting buildings such as churches, gavits, scriptoriums, bell towers, refectories and spring houses. There are however no evident traces of dormitories for the hundreds of monks who once lived here, which must have been built of more ephemeral materials. Above, the Church of St. Amenaprkitch, built in the second half of the tenth century, Sanahin, Armenia.