Gelati Monastery
Gelati ( ka, გელათის მონასტერი ) is a medieval monastic complex near Kutaisi in the Imereti region of western Georgia. One of the first monasteries in Georgia, it was founded in 1106 by King David IV of Georgia as a monastic and educational center. The monastery is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and was a cultural, educational and scientific center in medieval Georgia. It is an exemplar of the Georgian Golden Age and a gold aesthetic is employed in the paintings and buildings. It was built to celebrate the Orthodox Christian faith in Georgia; some murals found inside the Gelati Monastery church date back to the 12th century. Overview and description The monastery is located on a hill several kilometers to the northeast of Kutaisi. It also overlooks the Tskaltsitela Gorge. It is constructed of solid stone, with full archways. The plan of the main monastery was designed in the shape of a cross, the symbol of Jesus's crucifixion and of Christianity. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon] |
|
Georgian Golden Age
The Georgian Golden Age ( ka, საქართველოს ოქროს ხანა, tr) describes a historical period in the High Middle Ages, spanning from roughly the late 11th to 13th centuries, during which the Kingdom of Georgia reached the peak of its power and development. In addition to military expansion, this period saw the flourishing of medieval Georgian architecture, painting and poetry, which was frequently expressed in the development of ecclesiastic art, as well as the creation of the first major works of secular literature. Lasting more than two centuries, the Golden Age came to a gradual end due to persistent invasions of nomads, such as Mongols, as well as the spread of Black Death by these same nomadic groups. Georgia further weakened after the Fall of Constantinople, which effectively marked the end of the Eastern Roman Empire, Georgia's traditional ally. As a result of these processes, by the 15th century Georgia fractured and turned into an isolate ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon] |
|
Ancient Gates Of Ganja
The Ancient Gates of Ganja were a masterpiece of craftsmanship of the 10th to 11th centuries. History In 1063, Shavur I, ruler of the Shaddadids dynasty, decided to build a castle surrounding Ganja. Six large gates were erected in different directions of the town. Upon Shavur's order Azerbaijani master Ibrahim ibn Osman built the gates. The gates were of cast iron decorated on the outside with stamped ornaments and patterns made according to the chasing method. The ornament contained the name of the master in the Kufi language and the date of the gate's completion. The inscriptions in Kufi Arabic on the surviving leaf of the gate read: "With the name of Allah, the merciful and benevolent. The Excellency Sayyid Shawur ibn Al-Fazl - May Allah keep his supremacy longer! - ordered this door to be built with the help of Abul Faraj Muhammad ibn Abdulla - Let Allah give success to him too. Smith Ibrahim ibn Osman Angaveyh's work. (1063)". In 1139 a strong earthquake struck Ganja and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon] |
|
Kutaisi
Kutaisi ( ; ka, ქუთაისი ) is a city in the Imereti region of the Georgia (country), Republic of Georgia. One of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, it is the List of cities and towns in Georgia (country), fourth-most populous city in Georgia after Tbilisi, Batumi and Rustavi. It lies west of Tbilisi, on the Rioni River, and is the capital of Imereti. Historically one of the major cities of Georgia, it served as the political center of Colchis in the Middle Ages as the capital of the Kingdom of Abkhazia and Kingdom of Georgia and later as the capital of the Kingdom of Imereti. From October 2012 to December 2018, Kutaisi was the seat of the Parliament of Georgia as an effort to decentralize the Georgian government. History Archaeological evidence indicates that the city functioned as the capital of the Colchis in the sixth to fifth centuries BC. It is believed that, in ''Argonautica'', a Greek litera ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon] |
|
Byzantine Style
Byzantine architecture is the architecture of the Byzantine Empire, or Eastern Roman Empire, usually dated from 330 AD, when Constantine the Great established a new Roman capital in Byzantium, which became Constantinople, until the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453. There was initially no hard line between the Byzantine and Roman Empires, and early Byzantine architecture is stylistically and structurally indistinguishable from late Roman architecture. The style continued to be based on arches, vaults and domes, often on a large scale. Wall mosaics with gold backgrounds became standard for the grandest buildings, with frescos a cheaper alternative. The richest interiors were finished with thin plates of marble or coloured and patterned stone. Some of the columns were also made of marble. Other widely used materials were bricks and stone. Mosaics made of stone or glass tesserae were also elements of interior architecture. Precious wood furniture, like beds, chairs, stools, ta ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon] |
|
Khakhuli Triptych
The Khakhuli triptych ( ka, ხახულის ხატი, ''khakhulis khati'') is a partially preserved large repoussé triptych icon of the Theotokos (Virgin Mary) created in medieval Georgia. It incorporates over 100 specimens of Georgian and Byzantine cloisonné enamel dated from the 8th to the 12th century. The icon is now on display at Art Museum of Georgia in Tbilisi.Speel, Erika (ed., 1998), ''Dictionary of enamelling'', p. 67. Ashgate, , History The Khakhuli triptych derives its name from the medieval Georgian Khakhuli monastery (now Haho, Turkey), where it was originally kept. Early in the 12th century, the Georgian king David the Builder donated several precious stones to the icon while his successor Demetrius I had the icon, already revered as miraculous, transferred to the Gelati monastery near Kutaisi, western Georgia, where it was further refurbished and set in a gold frame with gilded silver wings under Queen Tamar. According to the medieval Georg ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon] |
|
Triptych
A triptych ( ) is a work of art (usually a panel painting) that is divided into three sections, or three carved panels that are hinged together and can be folded shut or displayed open. It is therefore a type of polyptych, the term for all multi-panel works. The middle panel is typically the largest and it is flanked by two smaller related works, although there are triptychs of equal-sized panels. The form can also be used for pendant jewelry. Beyond its association with art, the term is sometimes used more generally to connote anything with three parts, particularly if integrated into a single unit. Etymology The word ''triptych'' was formed in English by compounding the prefix '' tri-'' with the word '' diptych''. ''Diptych'' is borrowed from the Latin , which itself is derived from the Late Greek () . is the neuter plural of () . In art The triptych form appears in early Christian art, and was a popular standard format for altar paintings from the Middle Ages onwa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon] |
|
Greece
Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the east. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of the Geography of Greece, mainland, the Ionian Sea to the west, and the Sea of Crete and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the longest coastline on the Mediterranean Basin, spanning List of islands of Greece, thousands of islands and nine Geographic regions of Greece, traditional geographic regions. It has a population of over 10 million. Athens is the nation's capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city, followed by Thessaloniki and Patras. Greece is considered the cradle of Western culture, Western civilisation and the birthplace of Athenian democracy, democracy, Western philosophy, Western literature, historiography, political science, major History of science in cl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon] |
|
Athens
Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southernmost capital on the European mainland. With its urban area's population numbering over 3.6 million, it is the List of urban areas in the European Union, eighth-largest urban area in the European Union (EU). The Municipality of Athens (also City of Athens), which constitutes a small administrative unit of the entire urban area, had a population of 643,452 (2021) within its official limits, and a land area of . Athens is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, world's oldest cities, with its recorded history spanning over 3,400 years, and its earliest human presence beginning somewhere between the 11th and 7th millennia BCE. According to Greek mythology the city was named after Athena, the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon] |
|
Mount Athos
Mount Athos (; ) is a mountain on the Athos peninsula in northeastern Greece directly on the Aegean Sea. It is an important center of Eastern Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodox monasticism. The mountain and most of the Athos peninsula are governed as an Autonomous administrative division, autonomous region in Greece by the monastic community of Mount Athos, which is ecclesiastically under the direct jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. The remainder of the peninsula forms part of the Aristotelis (municipality), Aristotelis municipality. By Greek law and by religious tradition, women are prohibited from entering the area governed by the monastic community. Mount Athos has been inhabited since ancient times and is known for its long Christian presence and historical monastic traditions, which date back to at least 800 AD during the Byzantine Empire, Byzantine era. Because of its long history of religious importance, the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon] |
|
Classical Greece
Classical Greece was a period of around 200 years (the 5th and 4th centuries BC) in ancient Greece,The "Classical Age" is "the modern designation of the period from about 500 B.C. to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C." ( Thomas R. Martin, ''Ancient Greece'', Yale University Press, 1996, p. 94). marked by much of the eastern Aegean and northern regions of Greek culture (such as Ionia and Macedonia) gaining increased autonomy from the Persian Empire; the peak flourishing of democratic Athens; the First and Second Peloponnesian Wars; the Spartan and then Theban hegemonies; and the expansion of Macedonia under Philip II. Much of the early defining mathematics, science, artistic thought (architecture, sculpture), theatre, literature, philosophy, and politics of Western civilization derives from this period of Greek history, which had a powerful influence on the later Roman Empire. Part of the broader era of classical antiquity, the classical Greek era ended after ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon] |
|
Aristotle
Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, and the arts. As the founder of the Peripatetic school of philosophy in the Lyceum (classical), Lyceum in Athens, he began the wider Aristotelianism, Aristotelian tradition that followed, which set the groundwork for the development of modern science. Little is known about Aristotle's life. He was born in the city of Stagira (ancient city), Stagira in northern Greece during the Classical Greece, Classical period. His father, Nicomachus (father of Aristotle), Nicomachus, died when Aristotle was a child, and he was brought up by a guardian. At around eighteen years old, he joined Plato's Platonic Academy, Academy in Athens and remained there until the age of thirty seven (). Shortly after Plato died, Aristotle left Athens and, at the request ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon] |
|
Arsen Ikaltoeli
Arsen Iqaltoeli or Arsen of Iqalto ( ka, არსენ იყალთოელი) (died c. 1127) was a Georgian churchman, theologian, calligrapher and religious author with noticeable role in the ecclesiastic life of Georgia in the reign of David IV "the Builder" ( r. 1089—1125) with whom he collaborated in rearing the Georgian monastic academes. His formidable efforts at translating and compiling major doctrinal and polemical work from Greek gave a novel impetus to the Georgian patristic and philosophical literature. Rayfield, Donald (2000), '' The Literature of Georgia: A History'', pp. 40, 90. Routledge, . Iqaltoeli is canonized by the Georgian Orthodox Church, which commemorates him on February 6 (19). Life Arsen is apparently the same person as Arsen Vachesdze mentioned in several manuscripts. Furthermore, some Georgian scholars identify him with Arsen Beri (Arsenius "the Monk"; fl. 1100), the author of the metaphrastic revision of ''The Life of Saint Nino''. Accord ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon] |