Mravaldzali, Murals of Church of St. George

Building:	Mravaldzali, Church of St. George
Layer of the Murals:	One Layer
Date/Period:	The beginning of 11th century
Donor(s):	Unknown
Painter(s):	Unknown

Inscription(s)

of the Donor(s)

of the Painter(s)

Description

The interior of the original church had been completely plastered and painted. The murals are destroyed by now. Materials about the painting are found in the publications of the end of the 19^th century and the first half of the 20^th century.

Chancel

The Deesis was represented in the conch: enthroned Christ is depicted in the center with His right hand raised in blessing and an open book on the knee (John 8:12); the Virgin is depicted on the right and St. John the Baptist – on the left. According to Ek’vt’ime T’aq’aishvili, there were single figures, supposedly saint archangels, next to the supplicants, on the edges of the conch.

Aisle

Out of the Twelve Great Feasts depicted in the hall, fragment of the composition of the Nativity had been preserved in the eastern part of the north wall until the beginning of the 1990s. According to D. Bakradze, the murals of the church also contained the life cycle of St. George.

Bibliography

Simon Skhirtladze, “Rach’is materialuri kulturis udzvelesi dzegli” [“The Earliest Monument of Material Culture in Rach’a”], Sabch’ot’a khelovneba [Soviet Art] 4 (1960): 55–9.

Ek’vt’ime Taq’aishvili, Ark’eologiuri mogzauroba rach’ashi 1919 da 1920 ts’ts’. (Tbilisi, 1963) 56–64; Reprinted in id., Izbrannye trudy [Collected Studies] (Tbilisi, 2017), 310.

Zaza Skhirtladze, “Mravaldzalis ts’. giorgis eklesia” [“Mravaldzali Church of St. George”], Dzeglis megobari [Monument’s Friend] 60 (1982): 40–9.