Ani, the city of 1001 churches, jewel of the Armenian Middle Ages. The city’s story is as famous as its dramatic ruins, perched above the Akhurian river just within the borders of the modern Republic of Turkey. Much of the most spectacular remains speak to Ani’s period as capital of the Bagratuni shahanshahs, architecture equal to any in global history. Yet shortly after Ani would experience two separate conquests and a third transfer of power, heralding a period of apparent political turbulence that would last across the twelfth and into the thirteenth centuries, including Seljuq Turkish sultans, Shaddadid Kurdish emirs, Georgian Bagrationi monarchs and their Armenian-Georgian vassals, Mongol khans and their regional successors the Iranian Ilkhans. By the middle of the fourteenth century the city had entered its long, indistinct afterlife, that “Golden Age” a mere memory—if, indeed, it was even that.

A familiar tale for many, but is this the only story medieval Ani has to tell? In this first talk in the Armenian Institute’s series ‘Reintroducing Ani 900-2021’, AI programme manager and social historian Nicholas Matheou reveals a different story Ani’s remains wait to tell. This story has a new set of characters, more humble than the royal and aristocratic figures of the Bagratuni monarchy, and sets those familiar characters in a new light too. Maybe most importantly, it speaks to Ani’s place not only in Armenian or regional history, but in the transformations of the Global Middle Ages, and their resonance in the making of modernity over the long term.Join us on zoom here:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81665960020