ABSTRACT
The pages that follow focus on the visual expression of rulership in Armenia during the years 884/85-1045 ce, a time commonly, if inaccurately, referred to as the Bagratuni period. It was during this time that the palace church of the Holy Cross at Aght‘amar and the city of Ani were built, to list only the most famous of the surviving monuments. While there is a sizeable literature on the royal art and architecture of this period, the paucity of surviving comparanda has too frequently resulted in the monuments being presented in sterile isolation, explained only internally through an analysis of their own components. There has been little attempt to interpret the message of these works through the study of their original contexts. There has also been no attempt to integrate them within the chronological scope of the period, or across the socio-political divisions that existed during those years.
