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Vardzia
Vardzia ( ka, ვარძია ) is a cave monastery site in southern Georgia, excavated from the slopes of the Erusheti Mountain on the left bank of the Kura River, thirty kilometres from Aspindza. The main period of construction was the second half of the twelfth century. The caves stretch along the cliff for some five hundred meters and in up to nineteen tiers. The monastery was an important cultural center, a place of significant literary and artistic work. The Church of the Dormition, dating to the 1180s during the golden age of Tamar and Rustaveli, has an important series of wall paintings. The site was largely abandoned after the Ottoman takeover in the sixteenth century. Now part of a state heritage reserve, the extended area of Vardzia-Khertvisi has been submitted for future inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List. History Soviet-era excavations have shown that the area of Vardzia was inhabited during the Bronze Age and indicated the reach of Trialeti cul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tamar Of Georgia
Tamar the Great ( ka, თამარ მეფე, tr, lit. "King Tamar") ( 1160 – 18 January 1213) reigned as the Queen of Georgia from 1184 to 1213, presiding over the apex of the Georgian Golden Age. A member of the Bagrationi dynasty, her position as the first woman to rule Georgia in her own right was emphasized by the title ''mepe'' ("king"), afforded to Tamar in the medieval Georgian sources. Tamar was proclaimed heir and co-ruler by her reigning father George III in 1178, but she faced significant opposition from the aristocracy upon her ascension to full ruling powers after George's death. Tamar was successful in neutralizing this opposition and embarked on an energetic foreign policy aided by the decline of the hostile Seljuq Turks. Relying on a powerful military elite, Tamar was able to build on the successes of her predecessors to consolidate an empire which dominated the Caucasus until its collapse under the Mongol attacks within two decades after Tamar's dea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Georgia (country)
Georgia (, ; ) is a transcontinental country at the intersection of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is part of the Caucasus region, bounded by the Black Sea to the west, by Russia to the north and northeast, by Turkey to the southwest, by Armenia to the south, and by Azerbaijan to the southeast. The country covers an area of , and has a population of 3.7 million people. Tbilisi is its capital as well as its largest city, home to roughly a third of the Georgian population. During the classical era, several independent kingdoms became established in what is now Georgia, such as Colchis and Iberia. In the early 4th century, ethnic Georgians officially adopted Christianity, which contributed to the spiritual and political unification of the early Georgian states. In the Middle Ages, the unified Kingdom of Georgia emerged and reached its Golden Age during the reign of King David IV and Queen Tamar in the 12th and early 13th centuries. Thereafter, the kingdom decl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cave Monastery
A cave monastery is a monastery built in caves, with possible outside facilities. The 3rd-century monk St. Antony the Great, known as the founder of monasticism Monasticism (from Ancient Greek , , from , , 'alone'), also referred to as monachism, or monkhood, is a religious way of life in which one renounces worldly pursuits to devote oneself fully to spiritual work. Monastic life plays an important role ..., lived in a cave. *Albania **Qafthanë Cave Church, cave church near Urakë **St. Mary's Church, Maligrad, St. Mary's Church, cave church in Maligrad, an island in the Prespa lake *Armenia **Geghard cave monastery/fortress *Bulgaria **Aladzha Monastery **Albotin Monastery ** Basarbovo Monastery **Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo **Cave monasteries of Krepcha **Monasteries of Provadia **Cave monasteries on the Plateau of Shumen **Cave monasteries of Tervel (town), Tervel *Ethiopia **Monolithic church *France **Abbey of Saint-Roman, Beaucaire, Gard, Beaucaire, Gard [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of Georgia (country)
The nation of Georgia ( ka, საქართველო ''sakartvelo'') was first unified as a kingdom under the Bagrationi dynasty by the King Bagrat III of Georgia in the early 11th century, arising from a number of predecessor states of the ancient kingdoms of Colchis and Iberia. The Kingdom of Georgia flourished during the 10th to 12th centuries under King David IV the Builder and Queen Tamar the Great, and fell to the Mongol invasion by 1243, and after a brief reunion under George V the Brilliant to the Timurid Empire. By 1490, Georgia was fragmented into a number of petty kingdoms and principalities, which throughout the Early Modern period struggled to maintain their autonomy against Ottoman and Iranian ( Safavid, Afsharid, and Qajar) domination until Georgia was finally annexed by the Russian Empire in the 19th century. After a brief bid for independence with the Democratic Republic of Georgia of 1918–1921, Georgia was part of the Transcaucasian Socialist Feder ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vanis Kvabebi
Vanis Kvabebi ( ka, ვანის ქვაბები; en, Vani's Caves) is a cave monastery in Samtskhe-Javakheti region of Georgia near Aspindza town and the more famous cave city of Vardzia Vardzia ( ka, ვარძია ) is a cave monastery site in southern Georgia, excavated from the slopes of the Erusheti Mountain on the left bank of the Kura River, thirty kilometres from Aspindza. The main period of construction was the sec .... The complex dates from 8th century and consists of a defensive wall built in 1204 and a maze of tunnels running on several levels in the side of the mountain. There are also two churches in the complex. A newer stone church that is in quite good shape stands near the top of the wall, and a smaller, domed church that clings to the rock on the level of the highest tunnels See also * Culture of Georgia * Vardzia cave city {{Georgian Churches Georgian Orthodox monasteries Caves of Georgia (country) Buildings and structures in S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Agency For Cultural Heritage Preservation Of Georgia
The National Agency for Cultural Heritage Preservation of Georgia ( ka, საქართველოს კულტურული მემკვიდრეობის დაცვის ეროვნული სააგენტო, ''sak'art'velos kulturuli memkvidreobis datsvis saagento'') is a government agency in Georgia responsible for preservation, protection, research and promotion of cultural heritage of the country. The agency was established in 2008, bringing several major heritage monument complexes of national and global significance in Georgia under its umbrella.The National Agency for Cultural Heritage Preservation of Georgia heritagesites.ge. Retrieved 2012-01-25. The agency is headed by Director General, a position occupied by the art historian |
George III Of Georgia
George III ( ka, გიორგი III) (died 27 March 1184), of the Bagrationi dynasty, was the 8th King of Georgia from 1156 to 1184. He became king when his father, Demetrius I, died in 1156, which was preceded by his brother's revolt against their father in 1154. His reign was part of what would be called the Georgian Golden Age – a historical period in the High Middle Ages, during which the Kingdom of Georgia reached the peak of its military power and development. George was the father of Queen Tamar the Great. Life He succeeded on his father Demetrius I's death in 1156. He changed his father's defensive policy into a more aggressive one and resumed offensive against the neighboring Seljuqid rulers in Armenia. The same year he ascended to the throne, George launched a successful campaign against the Shah-Armens. It may be said that the Shah-Armen took part in almost all the campaigns undertaken against Georgia between 1130s to 1160s. Moreover, Shah-Armens enlisted the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Basian
The Battle of Basiani was fought, in the 13th century, between the armies of the Kingdom of Georgia and the Seljuqid Sultanate of Rum in the Basiani valley, 60 km northeast of the city of Erzurum in what is now northeast Republic of Turkey. The battle is variously dated between 1202 and 1205, but 1203 or 1204 has lately been given preference. The contemporary Muslim chronicler Ibn Bibi places the battle in 598 AH (October 1, 1201 – September 19, 1202). The modern Turkish historians identify the castle of Micingerd (Mazankert) as the location of the battle. Background The battle was one of those several conflicts between the Georgian monarchs and the Seljuqid rulers of Anatolia that fill the region’s history of the 11th–13th century. It marked yet another attempt by the Seljuqids to stem the Georgian advances southward. The story of this conflict is narrated in the contemporary Georgian, Armenian and Islamic sources. The sultan of Rüm, Rukn ad-Din Süleymanshah ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kura (Caspian Sea)
The Kura is an east-flowing river south of the Greater Caucasus Mountains which drains the southern slopes of the Greater Caucasus east into the Caspian Sea. It also drains the north side of the Lesser Caucasus while its main tributary, the Aras, drains the south side of those mountains. Starting in northeastern Turkey, it flows through Turkey to Georgia, then to Azerbaijan, where it receives the Aras as a right tributary, and enters the Caspian Sea at Neftçala. The total length of the river is . People have inhabited the Caucasus region for thousands of years and first established agriculture in the Kura Valley over 4,500 years ago. Large, complex civilizations eventually grew up on the river, but by 1200 CE, most were reduced to ruin by natural disasters and foreign invaders. The increasing human use, and eventual damage, of the watershed's forests and grasslands, contributed to a rising intensity of floods through the 20th century. In the 1950s, the Soviet Union started bui ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Georgian Chronicles
''The Georgian Chronicles'' is a conventional English name for the principal compendium of medieval Georgian historical texts, natively known as ''Kartlis Tskhovreba'' ( ka, ქართლის ცხოვრება), literally "Life of Kartli", Kartli being a core region of ancient and medieval Georgia, known to the Classical and Byzantine authors as Iberia. The chronicles are also known as ''The Georgian Royal Annals'', for they were essentially the official corpus of history of the Kingdom of Georgia.Rapp, Stephen H. (2003), Studies in Medieval Georgian Historiography: Early Texts And Eurasian Contexts', ''passim''. Peeters Publishers, . Retrieved on 26 April 2009.Toumanoff, Cyril (1963). ''Studies in Christian Caucasian History''. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, ''passim''. Chronicles The Chronicles consist of a series of distinct texts dating from the 9th to the 14th century. The dating of these works as well as the identification of their authors (e. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second principal period of the three-age system proposed in 1836 by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen for classifying and studying ancient societies and history. An ancient civilization is deemed to be part of the Bronze Age because it either produced bronze by smelting its own copper and alloying it with tin, arsenic, or other metals, or traded other items for bronze from production areas elsewhere. Bronze is harder and more durable than the other metals available at the time, allowing Bronze Age civilizations to gain a technological advantage. While terrestrial iron is naturally abundant, the higher temperature required for smelting, , in addition to the greater difficulty of working with the metal, placed it out of reach of common use until the end o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Icon
An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Catholic churches. They are not simply artworks; "an icon is a sacred image used in religious devotion". The most common subjects include Christ, Mary, saints and angels. Although especially associated with portrait-style images concentrating on one or two main figures, the term also covers most religious images in a variety of artistic media produced by Eastern Christianity, including narrative scenes, usually from the Bible or the lives of saints. Icons are most commonly painted on wood panels with egg tempera, but they may also be cast in metal, carved in stone, embroidered on cloth, done in mosaic or fresco work, printed on paper or metal, etc. Comparable images from Western Christianity can be classified as "icons", although "iconic" may also be used to describe a static style of devotional image. In the Greek language, the term for icon paintin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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