Issues of the Davit Gareji Monasteries’ Structure on the Background of the Early Byzantine Monasticism

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In the south of the Kakheti region (Georgia), on the uninhabited vast territory, there is a monastic area known as Davit Gareji, which includes about 20 independent monastic complexes. According to the historical sources, the first Cristian monasteries were found here in the 6th century by the desert Fathers emerged from movement of the Syrian monasticism. The internal life continued incessantly including the High Middle Ages and subsequently, they underwent serious reconstruction along with the development. Since only a small part of the Davit Gareji complexes has been studied archaeologically to some extent, the determination of their age of origin or their individual components is still in the initial phase. That applies also to the peculiarities of the worship service performed inside these complexes. In the recent years we conducted architectural and archaeological studies in order to correct this situation. Of course, we checked the correctness of the obtained results against the background of the early Byzantine monasticism in the neighboring foreign countries. It turned out that the vast majority of monasteries of Davit Gareji were arranged in the manner of the Laura in the 6th-9th centuries.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39892.0