Caucasian Communities and the Holy Land the Patterns of Interaction

Chapter 6 Caucasian Communities and the Holy Land The Patterns of Interaction

The place of the Caucasian Christians in Palestinian monastic life and in the pilgrimage movement to the Holy Land is attested in numerous historical sources. Caucasian monks and pilgrims settled in the proximity of the holy places side by side with their brothers in faith from Greece, Cyprus, Rome, Constantinople, Asia Minor, Armenia, Syria, Arabia and Africa.1 The great majority of the monks of Palestine spoke and prayed in Greek. The exceptions were a few early Armenian and Georgian monasteries where, according to historical sources, the monks celebrated the liturgy in their own language. Nevertheless, most of the Caucasian monks were merely residents in a large, multi-ethnic, Greek-speaking community, at least in the initial stage. However, the picture given by the sources is incomplete, and limited both chronologically and geographically. The most detailed sources, first and fore- most the hagiographic corpus of Cyril of Scythopolis, cover mainly the life of the desert monasteries in the sixth century, while the great majority of the archaeological evidence related to the Armenian and Georgian communities comes not from the desert, but from Jerusalem, and its surroundings, and dates to the end of the Byzantine – beginning of the Early Islamic period, i.e. to the sixth–eighth centuries. Therefore, it is important to examine the interrelations of the Caucasian communities with the Church of the Holy Land through analysis of archaeological remains. The analysis should concentrate on several categories of evidence:

– architectural characteristics of the structures associated with the Armenians and Georgians; – pottery vessels and burials, the most important identity markers that can be studied archaeologically; – epigraphic data, demonstrating preferences in the choice of language.

1 Di Segni and Tsafrir 2012.

Interaction with the Church of Jerusalem: The Archaeological Evidence

Architectural Characteristics Analysis of the architectural remains from the ‘nationally affiliated’ sites de- nies the possibility of identifying the Caucasian structures in the Holy Land according to their architectural or decorative features. All the construction ac- tivities follow the mainstream style of ecclesiastical architecture in the Holy Land, and belong to the type of relatively modest monastery architecture with a clear preference for a basilical form of church. The peak of Caucasian activity in Palestine overlaps the period in which the ecclesiastical architecture of the Caucasus reaches its zenith,2 when the early basilical form was almost totally abandoned, and when the highly original type of central-domed churches was developed, spanning the widest variety of forms: cruciform, cross inscribed in a square, rectangle, circle, and various forms of tetraconchs, crowned by conical domes.3 No sign of this architectural style can be seen in the structures built in the Holy Land. The same seems to be true in regard to church decoration: Caucasian architecture rarely used mosaics,4 but lavishly decorated the interior and exterior of the buildings with stone reliefs: the sacred compositions, portraits of the donators and founders, animals and birds, masters with their tools, floral and geometric ornaments.5 The appearance of the free-standing stone-cross stelae in Armenia and Georgia is dated to the same period, imitating the Golgotha Cross (Fig. 143).6 Noteworthy is a newly discovered ecclesiastical complex in Dmanisi, Georgia,

2 The research dedicated to the architecture of the Caucasus region is enormous. For recent works, see Plontke-Lüning 2007; Kazaryan 2012–13; Maranci 2001; 2015, all precenting a com- prehensive bibliography on a subject. For typology of polyapsidal churches – tetraconches, triconches etc. see Giviashvili 2009. 3 A type which is completely unknown outside the Caucasian region is the tetrachonch with corner niches. Two masterpieces of Caucasian architecture belong to this type: the church of St. Hripsime in Vagharshapat, Armenia, built in 618 and the Jvari (Holy Cross) church in Mtskheta, Georgia, built in the 640s. A variant of this type – a tetraconch with ambulato- rium – is represented by the Zvartnotz (Vigilant Forces) church in Vagharshapat, Armenia, built in 643–650. 4 The only small fragment of floor mosaic pavement was discovered in the Armenian Dvin Cathedral (608–615), remains of wall glass mosaics were found in Etchmiadzin (rebuilt ca. 620) and Zvartnots (643–650) in Armenia. 5 See, for example, elaborated reliefs in Zvartnots in Armenia (643–650), Bolnisi in Georgia (478–493), Mingechaur in Albania (610). 6 Machabeli 2008a; Hakobian 2010; Djavakhishvili 2014.