Church of the Holy Apostles (Ani)

40°30′32″N 43°34′14″E / 40.508798°N 43.570685°E / 40.508798; 43.570685

Seljuk-style muqarnas at the entrance portal of the Church of the Holy Apostles (east façade of the gavit, built after the 1031 church, but before 1215, date of the earliest inscription on the gavit). This design is similar to the tomb of Mama Hatun at Tercan, c.1200.[1][2][3]
In-situ reconstruction. Top: current ruins (Seljuk gavit to the left, ruins of the Armenian church to the right). Bottom: recontruction.

The Church of the Holy Apostles, also Surp Arak’elots (Armenian: Սուրբ Առաքելոց եկեղեցի, Surb Arakelots yekeghets’i, "Holy Apostles Church"),[3] is an important ecclesiastical monument of the ruined city of Ani, modern Turkey, on the border with Armenia.[4]

The Church is composed in two parts: the church itself, now largely ruined, and the colonnated gavit in front of it, remaining in large part.[4]

The remains of the gavit are clearly derived from Seljuk architectural designs.[5]

  1. ^ Eastmond, Antony (1 January 2017). Tamta's World: The Life and Encounters of a Medieval Noblewoman from the Middle East to Mongolia. Cambridge University Press. p. 293. doi:10.1017/9781316711774.011. The only parallels to them come from the Christian monuments of the Caucasus, such as the zhamatun of the church of the Holy Apostles in Ani, and the Akhlati-built Sitte Melik in Divrigi.
  2. ^ Eastmond, Antony (PhD in the art of medieval Georgia in the Caucasus, Oxford University). "Church of the Holy Apostles". Crossing Frontiers. The Courtauld Institute of Art, London.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  3. ^ a b Akture, Zeynep (2019). Unesco World Herıtage ın Turkey 2019. Unesco. pp. 466–477.
  4. ^ a b Eastmond, Antony (Oxford University PhD in the art of medieval Georgia in the Caucasus). "Church of the Holy Apostles". Crossing Frontiers. The Courtauld Institute of Art in London.
  5. ^ Eastmond, Antony (1 January 2014). "Inscriptions and Authority in Ani". Der Doppeladler. Byznanz und die Seldschuken in Anatolien vom späten 11. Bis zum 13. Jahrhundert, eds. Neslihan Austay-Effenberger, Falko Daim: 81. This was an early 11th-century church that was expanded in the early 13th century by the addition of a gavit on its southern side. In form this building was clearly indebted to Seljuq architectural designs, both for the overall structure of its porch (fig. 10), and for the muqarnas construction of its central dome. The architectural similarities highlight the importance of texts as a means of articulating identity in Ani when so many other facets of the contemporary environment were almost indistinguishable from that of the Seljuq world around them.