Abstracts - International Initiative for Georgian Cultural Studies

with a few minor exceptions based on longer lasting traditions. The basilica, common type of early church
architecture all over the world, keeps in Egypt its pre-Christian shape. All centralized churches in Egypt
follow foreign models and the architectural decoration is heavily influenced from the development in C/pel,
the capital of the Late Roman Empire.
With Georgia the situation is completely different. It was never as long part of the Roman Empire. The
Georgian ecclesiastical architecture is indeed rather different from the influence of the Late Roman Empire.
Examples which used the style of the basilica are rare and it seems that a centralized building type came in
Georgia earlier into use than in other parts of the Empire. Apart of this the Georgian churches are nearly all
built of stone material and the decorative elements are typical Georgian. Only in rare cases one can observe
traces of later Roman influences
John Wilkinson
The British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem. (Retired Director) UK
Where did Georgia’s Churches Start?
I was lucky enough in 1995 to meet Professor Vachtang Beridze. Over 13 years I have benefited greatly
by reading his book on ancient churches. I do not know whether he would have agreed with what I am going
to say about their origin, but he would certainly have given it a fair hearing.
It used to be the case that the design of churches was supposed to come from the basilica. But this was
because so much nineteenth century scholarship was based in Rome. Roman influence was everywhere
because Rome was the first to publish art books which, by any standard, were excellent. And Roman
scholars were very impressed by the author of a book on architecture, Leon Battista Alberti, who was also
an inhabitant of the Vatican. Alberti published his book in 1485, and this was the first time that his theory
about the basilica as the origin of church design was printed.
Is this theory of the basilica leading to the church correct? In Georgia, you only have to look at the
position of the altar on the plan. It is not exactly the same in every church. But the thing which links all these
altars is the proportion, the proportion of the Ark in the Tabernacle or in the Jerusalem Temple. So, in my
personal opinion, the churches were originally based on some buildings with a close link to the Tabernacle
or the Temple, and these are the Jewish synagogues.
Irine Giviashvili
Freelance Scholar. Georgia
Georgian Polyapsidal Church Architecture
The aim of my work is to bring together and analyze the developments of the type of medieval church
known as Polyapsidal. A polyapsidal church has more than one apse. In these churches a semicircular wall
covered with a conch can be found not only the east part of the sanctuary, but also on the lateral, north and
south sides, and on the west too. These buildings are reffered to as triconches, tetraconces, five-apsed and
hexaconces. Such Polyapsidal buildings will be discussed in comparison with six arm and eight arm buildings.
The remains of these kind of buildings are preserved in Georgia, as well in historic Georgian provinces
of Tao-Klarjeti (Turkey) and Hereti (Azerbaijan).
The evaluation of the tetraconch church type in Georgia was published by Prof. G. Chubinashvili, founder
of the School of Art History studies in Georgia. His work Monuments of the Jvari type, Tbilisi 1948,
remains not only as the main publication of this type of church building in Georgia but also as the key study
of Medieval Georgian Architecture in general. Numerous publications by other scholars were dedicated to
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MEDIEVAL GEORGIA