The Temple of Garni (Armenian: Գառնու տաճար, Gaṙnu tačar, [ˈgɑrnu ˈtɑtʃɑʁ])[a] is the only standing Greco-Roman colonnaded building in Armenia and the former Soviet Union. An Ionic temple located in the village of Garni, Armenia, it is the best-known structure and symbol of pre-Christian Armenia. The structure was probably built by king Tiridates I in the first century AD as a temple to the sun god Mihr. After Armenia's conversion to Christianity in the early fourth century, it was converted into a royal summer house of Khosrovidukht, the sister of Tiridates III. According to some scholars it was not a temple but a tomb and thus survived the universal destruction of pagan structures. It collapsed in a 1679 earthquake. Renewed interest in the 19th century led to excavations at the site in early and mid-20th century and its eventual reconstruction between 1969 and 1975. It is one of the main tourist attractions in Armenia and the central shrine of Armenian neopaganism. he temple is at the edge of a triangular cliff which overlooks the ravine of the Azat River and the Gegham mountains.[4] It is part of the fortress of Garni.[b] One of the oldest fortresses in Armenia,[5] it is mentioned as Gorneas in the first-century Annals of Tacitus.[6] The fortress was strategically significant for the defense of the major cities in the Ararat plain.[4] The site is in the village of Garni, in Armenia's Kotayk Province and includes the temple, a Roman bath with a partly preserved mosaic floor with a Greek inscription,[7] a royal summer palace, the seventh century church of St. Sion and other minor items (e.g., medieval khachkars) Arshak Fetvadjian described the temple as an "edifice of Roman style for the pantheistic idol cult fashionable in the days of the Arshakists."[23] As reported by Kamilla Trever in 1950, according to a different interpretation of the extant literary testimonia and the evidence provided by coinage, the erection of the temple started in 115 AD. The pretext for its construction would have been the declaration of Armenia as a Roman province[14] and the temple would have housed the imperial effigy of Trajan.[24] An alternative theory proposed by Richard Denys Wilkinson in 1982 suggests that the building is a tomb, probably constructed circa 175 AD. This theory is based on a comparison to Graeco-Roman buildings of western Asia Minor (e.g. Nereid Monument, Belevi Mausoleum, Mausoleum at Halicarnassus),[6] the discovery of nearby graves that date to about that time, and the discovery of a few marble pieces of the Asiatic sarcophagus style. Wilkinson furthermore states that there is no direct evidence linking the structure to Mithras or Mihr, and that the Greek inscription probably refers to a former fortress at the Garni site and not to the colonnaded structure. He also notes that it is unlikely that a pagan temple would survive destruction during Armenia's 4th-century conversion to Christianity when all other such temples were destroyed. Wilkinson offers the suggestion that the structure may be a tomb erected in honor of one of the Romanized kings of Armenia of the late 2nd century.[25][10] James R. Russell finds the view of the structure being a temple of Mihr baseless. Russell is also skeptical that the inscription refers to the temple