St. Sion of Arates along the Martuni

The study posits a reading of the ancient part of the Arates Monastery. The complex was the subject of a study and survey conducted from 2015 to 2020 by the Department of Architecture at the University of Florence, as part of the MAECI Making Silk Road mission. The study yielded a three-dimensional model and a territorial contextualisation. The analysis suggests that the territory in question may have been organised and managed from the 4th to the 7th centuries, a period defined by scholars as formative with respect to a particular type of settlement characterised by an apsidal hall and portico. The study provides a rationale for the potential inclusion of the church of St. Sion within this typology, thereby establishing a link between the area of Vayots‘ Dzor and the region of Loṛi, situated in the far north of Armenia, where numerous examples of this architectural composition are observed. The architectural structure of the monastery was built during a long period of time, and the different building technologies delineate a rearrangement activity in various historical periods up to the Middle Ages, denoting an original layout clearly visible thanks to the foundation crepidoma of the church of St. Sion, the earliest building corpus. The ancient monastery of Arates is located in a valley of the Martuni River, a tributary of the Arpa that forms the Vayots‘ Dzor region of southern Armenia. Renowned for its scriptorium, the monastery has withstood earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that have previously devastated the area, with the effects of the 9th-century eruptions still visible in the form of eruption fronts that extend as far as Yeghegis. Local residents have reported that there was a road to the high plateau of Lake Sevan that reached the village of Martuni, the sake of the stream that flows on the slopes of Arates.