Most scholars, especially Armenian ones, attribute the temple to King Tiridates I around AD 77, based on a Greek inscription found in 1945 that names him as founder in the eleventh year of his reign. Wilkinson, Russell and others instead propose a 2nd-century tomb, possibly built around AD 175 for a Romanized Armenian king.
It is an Ionic peripteral building of locally quarried basalt, assembled without mortar. The podium measures 51 by 38 feet (15.7 by 11.5 m), and the building is 35 feet (10.7 m) tall, with 24 Ionic columns, each 21.5 feet (6.54 m) high. Blocks weigh up to about 5 tons and were joined with iron and bronze clamps.
The 1679 earthquake collapsed the colonnade, though the podium, lower cella and column bases stood. A reconstruction by anastylosis ran from 1969 to 1975, with about one-third original stone and two-thirds new basalt. The article gives no ticket information.
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