The Royal Palace of Geguti ( ka, გეგუთის სასახლე) was a

Georgian Georgian may refer to: Common meanings * Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country) ** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group ** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians **Georgian scripts, three scrip ...

royal palace active during the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

. Currently only ruins remain at the eponymous village, 7 km south of the city of Kutaisi.

History

The ruins of the Geguti palace complex occupy the area of over 2,000 m² along the

Rioni River The Rioni ( ka, რიონი, ; , ) is the main river of western Georgia. It originates in the Caucasus Mountains, in the region of Racha and flows west to the Black Sea, entering it north of the city of Poti (near ancient Phasis). The city o ...

. An extensive fieldwork between 1953 and 1956 allowed the specialists to stratify the principal archaeological layers and reconstruct the architectural form and decoration of the medieval edifices bulk of which dates to the 12th century, the period when the first written mention of Geguti appears in the Georgian Chronicle. The earliest structure – a plain, one-room building with a large fireplace – dates back to the 8th/9th century. A principal part of the royal complex, commissioned by King

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 agains ...

(), is a four-tier brick edifice built onto a three-metre high stone plinth, with its spacious, cruciform central hall surmounted by a dome 14 m in diameter resting on squinches. The entire building is walled and fortified with massive pillars. Westerly located additional structures and a palace church are of a later period, dating to the 13th/14th century. The importance of the ruins of the Geguti palace is emphasized by its largely secular nature as most of the surviving monuments of medieval Georgian architecture are churches and monasteries. Records of medieval secular patronage (basically palaces with extensive decorative cycles) exist in the Georgian written sources, although only the shells of castles and the ruins of Geguti survive to testify the extent of the work produced. Geguti reconstruction

The main complex of the Geguti royal palace was constructed during what is considered to be medieval Georgia's "

golden age The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the '' Works and Days'' of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages, Gold being the first and the one during which the G ...

". Although the Georgian court was quite mobile, the establishment of a royal palace of this scale near the kingdom’s second capital and a major cultural center can be understood as the desire to establish a more settled, regal court, and royal bureaucracy which, indeed, reached its climax under the

queen regnant A queen regnant (plural: queens regnant) is a female monarch, equivalent in rank and title to a king, who reigns '' suo jure'' (in her own right) over a realm known as a "kingdom"; as opposed to a queen consort, who is the wife of a reigni ...

Tamar (r. 1184-1213).Antony Eastmond (1998), ''Royal Imagery in Medieval Georgia'', pp. 152, 188-190. Penn State Press, . The Geguti palace frequently features in the Georgian annals as a beloved place of rest of the Georgian royalty. In the reign of Tamar, it was the place where her former husband, Prince

Yuri Bogolyubsky Yury Bogolyubsky (russian: Юрий Боголюбский), known as Giorgi Rusi ( ka, გიორგი რუსი, George the Rus') in the Kingdom of Georgia, was a Rus' prince of Novgorod (1172–1175). Born around 1160, He was married t ...

, was crowned by the rebellious nobles during an abortive coup against the queen in 1191. In 2016, a glass panel installation was erected, surrounding the ruins, to show visitors the complete original shape of the monument.

References

External links

Geguti
Parliament of Georgia.

Kutaisi Scientific Center, 2001. *{{in lang, de}

Deutsch-Georgisches Zentrum für Internationale Beziehungen. Palaces in Georgia (country) Medieval architecture Buildings and structures in Kutaisi Buildings and structures in Imereti Immovable Cultural Monuments of National Significance of Georgia