I know nothing about the structure or the location pictured above, except that it apparently is somewhere in Armenia. It appears to be a collection of brick or stone buildings built on a rock outcrop above a deep valley. The outer walls of the outer buildings are almost flush with the rock wall in the style of ancient castles; at the far left of the picture is a larger opening that looks like a portico for a drawbridge. The outer wall-buildings have perhaps arrow-slits (balistraria), or perhaps just skinny windows.
Behind that a large building with certainly a cross on the top, and the building itself perhaps with a cross-shaped floor plan.
A fortified monastery? I don't know, but would love to find out more. The photo album at the original site has all text in what looks like Cyrillic alphabet, so I can't even begin to probe it (babelfish only yielded "multifaceted Armenia." In the past year TYWKIWDBI has had only one visitor from Armenia (from Yerevan), but perhaps someone else knows of this place or can find some information. Thanks in advance. Looks like an absolutely fascinating place that could probably tell some hair-raising stories if the walls could speak...
Original image credit here, via Uncertain Times.
Addendum: Further information and photos of this interesting monastery are in the followup post on Tatev.
What a fantastic photo!
ReplyDeleteIt appears to be the Tatev Monastery (see also here).
According to Wikipedia, it's located in south-eastern Armenia, and dates back to 895, though I'm guessing that the present construction is from a later period (or periods).
I entered the URL in Google and then clicked on "Translate this page". I have found this to work quite well for translations, but YMMV.
ReplyDeleteI then reduced the URL to the home page addy and then navigated my way back to the gallery. (Sometimes you find things on the way that you might miss otherwise.) This was the description I found:
>Diverse, Armenia
Then I spread a selection of digital images for a year and a half trip to Armenia. For some reason skanov with the slide until it is. Nagorno-Karabakh, and photographs of Turkey (Ararat district and Wang), I выложу separate galleries, which until then reach your hands:)
Captions for photos, I also write later:)<
So, I went with Diverse Armenia.
Another interesting note: for those of you that use Google Reader, there is now a "Translate into my language feature. It's in the "feed settings" tab.
Another great resource:
http://tineye.com/
It's a reverse image search engine. Enter your photo and it searches for other examples on the net. I have identified numerous pictures with this.
And thanks to Rich H for the info! Good one.
The website is in Russian. It is a portfolio of a photographer. The photograph was indeed taken in Armenia though it doesn't say where, or the name of it. :( The photographer does promise to follow up on that.
ReplyDeleteKatie (and any others who happen upon this post) - please see my followup post on Tatev.
ReplyDelete