A Diary of Work at Ani: Part III

In August 2011, the Istanbul-based documentation company Solvo-Tek, lead by Mr. Bora Sayin, completed phase 1 of work at the Church of the Savior. Work included documenting the structure and its site using digital photography, terrestrial laser scanning, GPS survey, and digital HDR panoramic photography. The team photographed and scanned the standing remains of the church and the fallen wall sections in-situ before their removal to an area adjacent to the church next spring. Panoramic photographs of the general area were also taken to put the site within the general context of the larger site and its relationship to other structures, such as the neighboring cathedral and the surrounding topography.
Third Day

We have arrived to the site around 9:00 am to continue the GPS work and finish it by end of the day. However we had scattered rain in first couple of hours, which kept us idle. While we waited for the weather we had our lunch in the shadows of cathedral. Since there is no place to buy food in the village we bought some snacks and fruits from a supermarket in Kars, including the famous local Kasar cheese.

We were able to start by the noon. We established new points at different locations. Since we are already establishing new points at the site we thought it’d be nice to have couple of points around the cathedral as well.

The weather changes very quickly here. It was rainy and chilly in the morning but we had really hot weather in the afternoon.
By 6:30 pm we finished the GPS campaign. We established 22 control stations covering both Surp P’rikitch and the cathedral. Each station has been surveyed with 15-20 minutes sessions to see as many satellites as possible, which helps increase accuracy.