Christian Temple Tkhaba-Yerdy in architecture history of the North-East Caucasus

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the Tkhaba-Yerdy medieval temple’s architectural features in the village of Dzheyra, Ingushetia, its comparison with other three-church basilicas. The scientific novelty of the article is due to the fact that a comprehensive study of the planning, volumetric and spatial solutions and the building material of the temple based on the results of physico-chemical analysis allows dating it to the 7th century. The activities of Kartli and, presumably, Armenia should be associated with the construction of basilicic temples in the north-eastern Caucasus. The temples of this composition in the Assin gorge of Ingushetia, Tkhaba-Yerdy and Albi-Erda can be attributed to a number of signs as variants of the three-church basilica, or the Armenian church hall with a detour. In Armenia, this type was distributed until the 7th century. In Kartli, three-church basilicas were built until the 14th century.