Tegher monastery

Tegher Monastery is located on the southern reach of Mount Aragats, in the province of Ashtarak. Its church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a sober cupola’d hall, was built in the 13th century. A gavit, with two chapels erected on its roof, leans against the west flank of the church. [Paragraph Source: Monuments of Armenia] Continuing N. up the mountain from Aghdzk, one bears left at the fork to reach the monastery of Tegher* (176 v), made of dark gray basalt. The gavit, finished in 1232, is particularly impressive. The complex was built at the behest of Mamakhatun, wife of Prince Vache Vachutian, and the architect, according to an inscription on a column of the gavit, was the vardapet Aghbayrik. The ruined village has interesting houses and the remains of a funerary chapel. Taking the right fork, the road winds to Orgov (329 v), with several huge radio-astronomy telescopes, near the telescope one can see a huge mirror plate – an unfinished solar energy station and, in the W part of the village, remains of a Bronze Age cyclopean fort, beside which an underground passage was recently discovered leading to a neighboring spring.