Taghaser’s Anapat Monastery
Location The Anapat monastery is situated on a hill between two ravines one kilometer west of Taghaser village in the Hadrut region (Fig. 1). Taghaser has been under Azerbaijani occupation since October 2020. Historical overview The monastery’s construction history has not been preserved. The name implies that there was a monastery-anapat here. Both the monastery and the hill are referred to as Napat by locals. Architectural-compositional examination The monastery was comprised of the church and several buildings to the west and south of it, from which only the traces of the walls have been preserved (Fig. 2, 3). In some places, the foundations of the wall that surrounded the monastery have been preserved. The church is a vaulted single-nave hall. It has a semi-circular tabernacle with two narrow sacristies on the eastern side (Fig. 4). The construction dates are most likely the 13th and 14th centuries. The entrance is on the west side (Fig. 5), and it is illuminated by windows on the east, south, and west sides. The sundial on the south wall has been preserved (Fig. 6). It’s made of raw limestone and lime mortar from the area. The wall structure was built with Khachkars (Fig. 7). Multiple khachkars have been preserved inside the church, one of which bears an inscription (Figs. 8, 9, 10, 11). It measures 12.9 meters long, 6.1 meters wide, and 5.5 meters tall.
