About 30 kilometres south of Yerevan, the low mounds of Dvin mark what was for several hundred years one of the great cities of the medieval Caucasus. Founded in the fourth century by the Armenian king Khosrov III as the new capital after Artashat became unworkable, Dvin endured as a centre of trade, government and religion until a catastrophic Seljuk earthquake in 1319 finished it off.
What remains today is unspectacular at first glance: foundations of the cathedral and palace, fragments of a fortified citadel, and a small site museum displaying glazed ceramics, glass and metalwork from the excavations. But the scale of the ruins and the cultural mix they document — Armenian, Arab, Persian, Byzantine influences all here — make it genuinely interesting if you have a guide or an information sheet to walk you through it.