Place: Eastern Anatolia Region, Kars
Longitude: 430 34 ’EAST
Latitude: 400 30 ’North
Category: Cultural

Within the borders of the central district of Kars, the Ani archaeological area located on the border of Turkey and Armenia, from the early iron age to the 16th century, where the settlement is continuous, and the development of the Middle Ages in terms of urbanism, architecture and art is seen together. Silk Road settlement.

The settlement, which started in the 4th century in İçkale, is important in terms of documenting the first example of the transition from the closed city model to open city model. The settlement of the intense trade axes of the settlement has led to the development of the city as a multicultural commercial center in the future, which has made the city a meeting point of Armenian, Georgian, Byzantine and Seljuk cultures.

The architectural design ideas, construction materials and techniques and decoration details that emerge as a result of this mutual cultural interaction are the formations of an Ani -specific architectural language that will spread all over Anatolia and the Caucasus and in an urban landscape that has been transformed. Original architectural monuments were produced.

With these features, the sudden archaeological field was recorded in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2016.