The apse decoration of the Akhiza cathedral: documents and materials in the museums of Georgia

Abstract

AbstractThe meagre evidence, based on reports in sources and the material gleaned in the course of surveys by several researchers, of the fortress of Akhiza (northeast Turkey), which was renovated in the reign of King Vakhtang Gorgasali (446–522), and on the Episcopal See set up there, may be supplemented by archival material preserved at the Sh. Amiranashvili Museum of Art, as well as by recourse to the artefacts deposited at the S. Janashia Museum of Georgia, both in Tbilisi. In particular, a letter of A. Florenski, a collaborator with the Caucasian Museum in Tbilisi, written early in the 20th century to D. Gordeev (1889–1964) makes it clear that, at that time, a mosaic image of the Virgin Orans existed in the chancel of the ruined cathedral. According to Florenski, the mosaic was destroyed by a resident of Ardanuch, Usta-Gevork, at the beginning of the 20th century. Some of the material collected by Florenski from Akhiza (including a finger-ring with a cameo bearing the image of the Archangel Michael and distinguished for its high artistic features) found its way to St Petersburg, while two antefixes with representations of leaved crosses and deer, as well as up to three dozen mosaic tesserae are kept in the S. Janashia Museum of Georgia. At the time of the creation of the mosaic, it is worth noting that, after the Arab conquests (in the 730s), Akhiza, with its cathedral, must have ceased to exist as an Episcopal See. In this connection, the antefixes supply additional dating evidence, the artistic peculiarities of the images adorning them clearly pointing to the fifth to sixth century.