The Bas-Reliefs of Korogo as Primery Historical Sources Confirming the Fact of Joint Construction and Shared Ownership of the Church by Local

Abstract

The Korogo church is erected on a mountain slope in Khada Gorge, East Georgia. The church dates to the turn of the 10th century to the 11th century. The west façade’s cornice is lavishly adorned with bas-reliefs. In contrast to decorative approach to reliefs, the majority of Korogo bas-reliefs show the workers doing their various jobs: the quarry worker splits off a block of stone, the workers are moving stone with sliding sledge, others are preparing mortar, etc. Thematically all these images are related to the church construction. Our Lady of Sign is depicted at the top of the gable. The ktetor offers church model to Her. On one of the plates several individuals near the altar table are shown. All the above images provide a valuable information not only about the methods used by medieval builders, but they can also be considered a primary historical source for judging about the social life in the past.

One of the main conclusions reached in the study is that the Kororgo Church was constructed jointly by ktetorship of the bishop and local community members. It was in joint ownership of the community. This fact suggests weakness of the feudal system and lack of the influence of feudal lords on Mtiuleti highland in the 10th-11th cc. This fact is not always clear from written sources.

Another image of interest is a sculpture carved on a large rectangular stone that served as a capital of the church porch column. Later, it was reused in other part of the church. Three individuals – a bearded adult male and two beardless youth behind him are depicted on the stone. Their left hand is raised in supplication. Despite the depiction of the actual ktetor on the west facade, art historian R. Mepisashvili was the first to suggest that the adult male standing by an unidentifiable rectangular object with depiction of a frame with trefoil outline at its top, is the ktetor of the church. The scholar suggested that the unidentifiable object was the church plan held by the ktetor. This interpretation is rejected in the article based on the analysis of a number of representations of church's patrons with church model in their hands.

The paleographical analysis of the inscription found on the north side of the west façade of the Korogo Church was performed and a new date – turn of the 10th century to the 11th century, instead of the 12th century, was suggested.