Greek columns
On the cliff edge.
Katsiaryna Naliuka — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Marcin Konsek — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Marcin Konsek — CC BY-SA 4.0 · uncredited — CC BY-SA 3.0
A Greco-Roman stone temple with elegant columns dating from the first century AD, standing on the edge of a cliff above the Azat River gorge, the only standing building of its kind in the lands of the former Soviet Union and the best-known monument of ancient Armenia. The temple was built under the Armenian kings before the country embraced Christianity; it collapsed in a strong earthquake in 1679, and its stones lay scattered for nearly three centuries until it was rebuilt in the Soviet era from its original blocks. Around it are the ruins of a royal palace and a Roman bath with a mosaic floor. Below the temple, on the floor of the gorge, lies a remarkable natural sight called the Symphony of Stones: towering walls of regular hexagonal basalt columns like the pipes of a giant organ, formed as lava cooled, reached on foot or by car. Tickets are AMD 1,500 for foreign visitors, per visitor guides. The temple is usually combined with nearby Geghard Monastery on a half-day trip from Yerevan, by car or on a tour.
On the cliff edge.
Basalt columns.
Mosaic floor.
Garni village, Kotayk Province, about 30 km east of Yerevan
Walls of hexagonal basalt columns in the Azat gorge below Garni Temple, like organ pipes.