Reliquary-chapel of saint Demetrios at the Davitgareji Desert

Actual Problems of Theory and History of Art, 2015

2008

The Georgian Kingdom and Georgian Art – Cultural Encounters in Anatolia in Medieval Period, Symposium Proceedings, 15 May 2014, Ankara, 2021

This book, comprising the proceedings of the 2014 Symposium “The Georgian Kingdom and Georgian Art” of symposium series on “Cultural Encounters in Anatolia during the Middle Ages” organized at Koç University's Vehbi Koç Ankara Studies Research Center, fills an important research gap in the historical principality of Tao-Klarjeti. Tao-Klarjeti is a term coined in the 19th century by the academic language of the 19th century to define medieval Georgian heritage and movable and immovable objects, relating to the historic Georgian provinces of T'ao, K'larjeti, Shavsheti, Erusheti, K'ola, Oltisi, and Sp'eri. Nowadays the majority of the archaeological sites and architectural remains of Tao-Klarjeti are located in the northeastern regions of the Republic of Turkey, in Erzurum, Artvin, and Ardahan. Most of the movable pieces — sculptures, manuscripts, icons, and other liturgical objects — are preserved in museums and repositories in Georgia. This volume consists of two sections. The first is dedicated to the publication of the conference papers and essays by the leading and young scholars in the field. The second section covers three different aspects of Tao-Klarjeti Heritage: 1) annexes of thirty-one most important sites with the emphasis on history and art and architecture, 2) sculptures and 3) a catalog of seventy-two manuscripts that were related to Tao-Klarjeti. Book provides a substantial bibliographical survey, and is richly illustrated with the map, drawings, and photos, in total 535 images. This work offers invaluable help for all those working on the medieval art and architecture of Georgia and its cultural encounters in Anatolia. Table of Contents Transliteration Table Monuments in Historic Tao-Klarjeti, Table Foreword by Filiz Yenisehirlioglu Introduction by Irene Giviashvili Part 1 Fahriye Bayram, Tao-Klarjeti: A Brief History and Surveys K. Kutgün Eyüpgiller, Tuğba Barlık Vardı, Serda Torus, Two Outstanding Medieval Buildings in North-East Anatolia: Ishkhani and Oshk’i Churches Nino Simonishvili, A Visual Concept of Royal Legitimacy: The Sculpted Program of St. John the Baptist Church of Oshk’i David Khoshtaria, Builders of the Churches of Tao-Klarjeti: Some Preliminary Notes Osman Aytekin, Archaeological Discoveries at Shavsheti Castle from the Bagrat’ionis Rule to the Ottoman Period Selda Uygun Yazıcı, Facade Articulation and Architectural Ornamentations of the Yeni Rabat Monastery Church Part 2 Irene Giviashvili & Natia Khizanishvili, Medieval Georgian Monuments of Tao-Klarjeti Turgay Yazar, Stone Ornaments in Tao-Klarjeti Architecture Nikoloz Zhghenti, Tao-Klarjeti: Heritage of Manuscripts Index DISTRIBUTED FOR Koc University Press by University of Chicago University Press https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/publisher/pu3432596_3432597.html

Metamorphoses. Art Readings 2023 (ed. Iva Dosseva, Margarita Kuyumdzhieva, Ralitsa Rousseva), Sofia: Institute of Art Studies, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 2024

North Street Review Arts and Visual Culture, 2010

2004

2019

HYPOGEA 2017 - International Congress of Speleology, 2017

More than two dozens of Christian cave monasteries created at the different stages of the Middle Ages have been found in South-east Georgia, in the province of David-Gareji. According to the historic sources, the earliest of these monasteries were founded in the 6 th century [Чубинашвили, 1948; Абуладзе, 1955]. The mentioned above monasteries consist of numerous caves having different size and design. As wall painting and inscriptions characterizing Christian iconography have been attested only in some parts of the churches' interiors, and besides wall paintings do not always coincide with the construction time, church dating is mainly provided on the basis of architectural analysis of their shapes. The research outcomes conducted in the given direction enable us to presume that the cave churches of David-Gareji were constructed during the period starting from the 6 th -7 th and throughout the 13 th -14 th centuries. Among them, together with rather small in size, simple cave chapels with one nave, the free cruciform churches are also considered by us as the earliest rock-cut structures, which have flat, arched or dome-imitate ceilings. This conclusion is based on the following arguments: shapes of rock-cut churches constructed in different architectural style could have represented more or less precise imitations of the stone church structure interiors widespread in mainly the same periods and within the same regions. Stone churches planned as of free cruciform in plan were being built in Georgia only in the 6 th -8 th centuries, while example of neckless stone dome churches in Georgia emerge only in the 7 th -9 th centuries. As a result, creation of rock-cut church imitations with the given elements in David-Gareji monasteries should be supposedly dated back to the 6 th -9 th centuries. It should be noted that rather close analogues of the David-Gareja-style cave churches can be traced in Cappadocia cave complexes. Substantial part of scientists dates the rather small-size, one-nave type and free cruciform in plan cave chapels of Cappadocia (including adorned with neckless dome imitations), from the same period -the 8 th -10 th centuries. Certainly, it cannot be excluded theoretically that the given type of cave churches in these two regions (Cappadocia and David-Gareja) could have been developed independently from each other as a result of the mentioned above process of copying from their stone-cut prototypes. However, the version that the monk groups living in these two adjacent regions of the early Byzantine-culture prevalence, could have borrowed planning of one or another architectural-style facilities and especially church constructions from each other, is considered to be much more acceptable. Moreover, it is well-known from the historic sources that Georgian organizations, particularly, David-Gareji monastery, had rather close relations with the monumental monastery centres of Cappadocia.

Kadmos, 2014

On the cover: a fragment of a decorated Hellenistic pithos from Samadlo (The Georgian National Museum)

Study of Georgian Frescoed Painted Chapel from the Vachedzori Monastery 10th-13th AD (Olur, Erzurum, Turkey),"Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry", 2023, Vol. 23, No 2, pp. 37-70., 2023

St. Grigol Khandzteli (759-861) and her followers' monastery construction operations in the Tao-Klarjeti region, as well as the art works of these monasteries, indicate that the foundations of the Medieval Georgian Art Academy were built in the region. The Painted Chapel, the subject of our study, is a part of this tradition. It has a single nave. It is dated to 12th-13th centuries AD. Contrary to what was claimed, our research in 2022 discovered that the chapel architecture differed from traditional Byzantine architecture and was built in the Georgian architectural style. It has been established that the medieval Georgian painting art, which grew under the influence of Byzantine art, attained a local quality. There are scenes showing Jesus' First Bath, Baptism, the Virgin Mary, and Warrior Saints. An inscription written in the old Georgian alphabet Asomtavruli was discovered. The inscription offers information about the chapel's history and the clergy. Analysis measurements were taken using μ-XRF, μ-Raman, and μ-FT-IR analytical instruments on samples taken from the chapel's plaster layer and the paints on this layer. The chapel's walls are painted in the secco fresco technique and are composed of a matrix of white plaster lime, sandstone (feldspar, quartz), limestone, and embedded aggregates. Red and yellow ocher pigments for red, burgundy, orange, and yellow colours; Carbon black and lazurite pigments for black and gray colours; Lazurite, barite and ultramarine blue pigments for light blue; Calcite lime white and calcium carbonate pigments are defined for the white colour. Plaster and pigments (except blue paint) were most likely made and supplied locally or regionally. This provides information regarding the technical knowledge of the Vank Valley residents.

Sasanian Elements in Byzantine, Caucasian and Islamic Art and Culture, Neslihan Asutay-Effenberger, Falko Daim (Hrsg.), Byzanz zwischen Orient und Okzident, 15. Mainz, , 2019

A century ago, Josef Strzygowski considered that Armenian architecture played a transitional role between Iranian domed structures and Byzantine constructions of the Justinian epoch (6th century). Nowadays, some points of that almost forgotten theory require revision and further consideration. But several ideas of the famous scholar deserve our attention. In particular, it is important to deepen the study of the probable Sasanian origins of some decorative motives and relief images of medieval Armenian architecture taking into consideration their new meaning in the context of Christian culture. The purpose of this study is to understand the impact of the Sasanian elements in the decoration system of Armenian churches of the 7th and the 10th-11th centuries, the periods of the highest development of national architecture, when it revealed the closest relationships with the Byzantine tradition. At the same time Armenian architecture interpreted both the Graeco-Roman and several local architectural peculiarities. The decoration of the domes in the interior of the 7th-century Armenian churches and the order-like blind arcades of the facades of the monuments of the Late Antique and Bagratid periods reveal Sasanian iconographic origins. Also, some ornaments and a range of mythical creatures on the reliefs and other features, such as the carpet-like curved ceilings of the zhamatun (narthex) of the Hoṙomos monastery, reflect the artistic characteristics of the Sasanian and early Islamic Iranian architecture.

Venezia Arti

Venezia Arti 1 This article was carried out as part of the project The Heritage of Nikodim P. Kondakov in the Experiences of André Grabar and the Seminarium Kondakovianum (GA18-20666S).

The Davit-Gareji cave monasteries, three of which were founded in the 6th c. A.D., have gained such a big fame that they drew large numbers of pilgrims. This is known owing to the numerous medieval graffiti that they left. It is of special interest that, apart from the graffiti in Georgian, the Davit-Gareji monasteries are rich in those written in Greek, Armenian, Arabic, Syriac, Persian, and Russian. We have evidences that certain pilgrims were Monophysites. They went on pilgrimage to Davit-Gareji as to a holy site where part of Jerusalem’s grace was stationed.

Resulting from our archaeological researches carried out for the last several years, three large Christian basilicas, having rather exquisite architectural style and constructed with the chronological distance of only several decades away from each other, built in one and the same city of the Iberia Kingdom, have been discovered. Despite of thes, it should be stated that in the most works of the famous Georgian art historians, almost throughout the entire XX century and even nowadays, problems of spreading the first Christian Churches, among them probable circumstances regarding popularity of basilicas, chronological differentiations and stylistic peculiarities of the church constructions, characteristic for the given epoch on the territory of Iberia-the ancient state with Christian cultural traditions, are covered absolutely differently. Rather strange versions hastily elaborated by the representatives of the Georgian art history school in relation to the given problem in the 20-s of the last century, have not experienced substantial evolution for decades. For example, even today in the works of these researchers we can find the propositions supposing that allegedly, unlike the whole early Byzantine world and countries within its cultural circle, the Iberian authorities, during more than a century after recognition Christianity as the state religion, have been building exceptionally miniature churches of almost any design, based on the oral descriptions of the missionaries about the temples of leading Christian countries (due to inadequate perception of liturgical processes performed there). Even recently, the mentioned above part of the Georgian art historians have named the impeding reason for revising this almost dogmatic, not documentarily confirmed opinion, stating that in order to revise the described proposition, they practically have not had tangible materials at hand-i.e., could not find aboveground remaining samples of large churches, built in the IV or even first quarter of the V centuries in East Georgia with objective dating signs, constructed in accordance with the accepted canonical planning, recognized by the early Christian foreign world; such monuments were not revealed even 15 years ago through archeological methods. As it seems, in the nearest future, in order to dispel this firmly established, although false position the Georgian art history, we will have to further intensively disseminate the architectural as well as archeological researches, conducted around each monument of the above mentioned category of Georgian church art throughout Georgia and abroad.

2019

This article presents the artefacts found during the excavation of a building at Napurvala Hill, Pichvnari, in the 1960s and 1970s and now at the Batumi Archaeological Museum (BAM). Besides discussing the bulk finds, some of which were already published in 1980 by Chkhaidze, this contribution provides, for the first time, a study of a small white marble cross found during the excavation and now on display at the BAM. It will conclude that, although the interpretation of the building as a church remains sound, the chronology of the artefacts is problematic as their dating ranges from the Hellenistic to the Medieval periods.