Sanahin stands on the Lori plateau in northern Armenia, above the gorge of the Debed, with the village built around and against it. Founded in the tenth century, in the era of the Bagratid kings, it developed into one of the most important centres of learning in the medieval Armenian world. The complex grew by addition, and the result is unusually dense: two principal churches set side by side and joined by a covered gallery, vaulted gavits acting as assembly halls and burial places, a library with niches cut into its walls for manuscripts, a bell tower, chapels and rows of cross-stones. Walking through it is a matter of passing from one vaulted volume into another with almost no daylight between them. Here theology, philosophy, medicine and manuscript illumination were taught and practised, and the monastery's academy is remembered as one of the leading schools of its time. Sanahin is inscribed on the World Heritage List together with Haghpat, a few kilometres away. Filmed in 4K, with attention to the play of light in the gavits and aerial views of the gorge, the programme suits strands on sacred sites, medieval history and the Caucasus.
