Silk Road. Armenia 2014-2015-2016-2017

In accordance with the Erasmus+ application for the exchange programme between Florence University (UniFi) and Yerevan State University (YSU) the teaching programme focused on the subjects of Survey methodology and analyses of architectural heritage in the middle age, two main areas of research of the Chair of Medieval Archaeology of UniFi for which YSU requested a specific transfer of knowledge. The methodological and analytical tools of Architecture were presented taking into consideration case studies selected from the sites of Vaiots Dzor Region, where UniFi and YSU with the sponsorship of MAECI are conducting a wide territorial survey for studying the formation of landscapes around the Silk Road, mainly in Mongolian period (cc. 13th- 14th). In particular ARATES was taken as an example of a multi-period architectural complex (cc. 9th-16th) and the teaching program focused on the concepts of: site, architectural complex and building structure. Workplace training has developed on territorial bound sites. Areni, whose architect seems to have worked with Arates and Noravank too. The castle of Sbadaberd, where the use of manuelances from the site of the Tsagatskar monastery is suspected; and ultimately the Tsagatskar monastery, where the church of Sang John presents the usual metric characteristics of Sions of Arates. The constructive typological confrontation between the monastic sites and their territorial relations has laid a general picture on the territory of Vaiotdzor, becoming the basis of interdisciplinary developments.