Earthquakes have shattered the abandoned churches, mosques and walls of Ani.
Trophy of the empire builders
The city’s strategic location made it a pawn in a vast Eurasian game of chess. It was fought over, sacrificed, taken, even promoted to the status of a queen. The names of the nations fighting changed over the centuries, but Ani saw them all come and go.
From 1044 it came under a wave of Byzantine attacks. In 1064 the town was captured and the inhabitants put to the sword by Seljuk Turks. Over the next 200 years it was owned by Muslim Kurds, Georgians and then Mongols. In the fourteenth century Ani was ruled by another Turkish dynasty, and then the Persians took over, before it became part of the mighty Ottoman Empire in 1579.
By now the city’s day in the sun was dimming into its twilight. The earth’s great empires now lay elsewhere. By the time the site was completely abandoned in 1750, there was only the equivalent of a small town left within the walls.
Lost and found
Ani slumbered in its little nook for a century or so. It was then rediscovered by delighted archaeologists and excavated in 1893. Several thousand of its most important treasures were uncovered and removed before the site could be looted, as happened in the First World War. At the end of that conflict the city was briefly back in Armenian hands before finally being incorporated into Turkey in 1921.
Today the best-preserved monument in the city is the church of St Gregory of Tigran Honents, completed in 1215. On its outer walls, elaborate animal carvings frame panels filled with ancient text. Inside, its frescos still shine with azure, gold and crimson hues as daylight floods the chamber through windows high in the central tower.
Several other churches stand in various states of preservation. A couple look ready to welcome worshippers; some are cloaked in grasses and lichens. The Church of the Redeemer stands like one half of a huge nutshell, its inside exposed to the elements; the church was cleaved in two by a lightning bolt in the 1950s. The rubble from the fallen half has been heaped forlornly in a poor attempt at protecting the half that remains standing.
The Cathedral of Ani has fared better. This architecturally stunning building was completed in AD 1001 and is famed for its pointed arches and clustered piers. These long predate the gothic style of architecture, which would eventually make such features commonplace.
Just down the street from the cathedral is the mosque of Minuchir, the first mosque to be built on the Anatolian plateau. Its 1,000-year-old minaret survives intact along with much of its prayer hall.
Ani was once encircled by powerful defensive walls, and many of these battlements and towers still stand. The walls were doubled in thickness at the northern side where the city was not protected by a river or ravine. Today these sections remain . . . ready to face an enemy that will never come.
There are also the remains of a convent, bathhouses, palaces, streets with shops and ordinary homes, and the abutments of a single-arched bridge over the Arpa River. A few minutes’ walk away in the gorge is an early solution to urban overcrowding – a satellite town of caves cut into the cliffs. The same high architectural standards are evident here: there is even a cave church with frescoes on its walls and ceiling.
The city’s future survival
Earthquakes in 1319, 1832, and 1988, as well as blasting in a nearby quarry and even target practice by the army have all damaged the city’s ancient architecture. Some ham-fisted repair work has done more harm than good. Currently, the city is on the ‘at risk’ register of the World Monuments Fund.
Ani’s sovereignty, meanwhile, remains contested. Today the ruins sit just inside Turkey; Armenia lies a piece of rubble’s throw away across a disputed frontier. Although open to visitors, it remains fenced off in a Turkish military enclave. History would suggest that this may not always remain the case. Ani may have been forgotten by the world at large for several centuries, but the Armenians have always remembered. One day they may yet reclaim their ancient city.
The church of St Gregory of Tigran Honents looks out over the river gorge and the empty plain beyond.
DATE ABANDONED: Eighteenth century
TYPE OF PLACE: City/Fortress
LOCATION: India
REASON: Political
INHABITANTS: 300,000
CURRENT STATUS: Abandoned
THIS HUGE FORTRESS TOWN WAS ONCE THE CAPITAL OF A MIGHTY MUSLIM KINGDOM. NOW, NEARLY FOUR CENTURIES AFTER IT CEASED TO BE THE PLEASURE GROUND OF EMPERORS, IT STILL POSSESSES EXQUISITE AND EXOTIC BEAUTY.
The Rupmati Pavilion commands princely views over the Narmada Valley.
Capital of kings
India has an abundance of romantic ruins, lost towns and derelict forts, but perhaps none of them are as magical as Mandu. It lies at the end of a dusty bus ride 100 km (62 miles) southwest of the city of Indore in the state of Madhya Pradesh. An eyrie-like plateau 300 m (990 ft) above the fertile plains of the Narmada River offers a fine defensive position and a glorious vista.
A Sanskrit inscription from AD 555 records that Mandu had already been a fortress for a thousand years. It was expanded in the tenth and eleventh centuries, but its true golden age began in the fifteenth century with the crowning of Hoshang Shah, the first Muslim king of the surrounding Malwa region. He made Mandu his capital city and a truly formidable fortress. The ridge-top plateau, which measures 10 km (6 miles) from north to south and 15 km (9 miles) from east to west, was completely ringed with a defensive wall, presenting 37 km (23 miles) of battlements to would-be conquerors. Twelve heavily built gates controlled humanity’s ebb and flow. Inside the battlements, gorgeous buildings sprouted like flowers in a walled garden: mosques, palaces, Jain temples, mausoleums, and courtyards.
Hoshang Shah died in 1435 and was interred in a white marble mausoleum. His ancestors were from Afghanistan, and Hoshang’s tomb is a beautiful example of their style of architecture. It is India’s oldest marble building, with a shapely dome, marble latticework, handsome towers and courts with shady porticos. It’s easy to see why the designers of the Taj Mahal came here to draw inspiration.
The Jahaz Mahal
Ghiyas-ud-din-Khilji ruled as sultan here from 1469 to 1500, and much of that time he devoted to the pursuit of pleasure and the arts. He built the Jahaz Mahal to house his harem, which was reputed to have numbered thousands of women. Sited between two artificial lakes, it is also known as the Ship Palace for the way it appears to float above the water in the mellow light of dawn and dusk. Its arches, galleries and domes appear as if in a dream from the Arabian Nights.
Keeping cool
Mandu’s elevated position meant that getting water could be tricky; but the Mughal engineers were more than up to the task. They constructed a series of wells, reservoirs and conduits to bring water to where it