Yeni Rabat

Yeni Rabat
View from the northeast
Data
place	Tao Klardschetia , Turkey
Construction year	First half of the 11th century
Coordinates	41 ° 4 '28 "  N , 42 ° 9' 58"  E Coordinates: 41 ° 4 '28 "  N , 42 ° 9' 58"  E

Yeni Rabat , also Rabat , is a church ruin, probably from the first half of the 11th century, of a former monastery of the medieval Georgian kingdom of Tao-Klardschetien in today's northeast Turkish province of Artvin . The Schatberdi monastery , founded in the 9th century and made famous by a gospel book copied around 973, is located at the place of Yeni Rabat .

location

The expressway 10 leading from the Black Sea in the valley of the Çoruh inland follows the Berta Suyu (Georgian Imerchewi ), a tributary of the Çoruh , about ten kilometers after Artvin in a northeasterly direction to Şavşat in an increasingly narrow and steeper gorge . From this road, three kilometers after the junction of a road to the Dolisqana monastery church , at a bridge over the Ardanuç Çayı (Georgian Artanudschiszqali ), which flows into the Berta Suyu, a side road turns south in the direction of Kars . After about 15 kilometers, it reaches the small town of Ardanuç , continues in the Ardanuç valley and later crosses the mountain range of the same name, up to 2,480 meters high, on the Yalnızçam pass . About 12 kilometers after Ardanuç, an unpaved road branches off to the left from the valley. It winds its way up almost a kilometer through pastureland to the hillside village of Bulanık with its cattle stalls made of solid logs . From here the path to the church runs a further three kilometers in the direction of Ardanuç and back almost at the same height above the valley floor.

The homestead hidden behind tall deciduous trees next to the church ruins is known as Çamliköy. Small watercourses flow from a side valley through green meadows, which make the area an oasis in the middle of the otherwise dry rocky landscape. The church stands on a rock protruding to the west, which was extended to an artificial plateau by a retaining wall several meters high in the south. It forms the only flat surface in the area. The church square that was created in this way is widest in front of the west and south side, because this is where the entrances are. Nothing remained of the outbuildings and enclosing walls.

Yeni Rabat is located roughly in the center of the region, which has become known as the "Georgian Sinai " due to its numerous churches . In the northern side valleys far above the Berta Suyu and only accessible via steep roads or footpaths from west to east, the remains of the former monasteries Dolisqana, Opiza , Chandsta (Porta) and Tbeti have been preserved. In the Anatolian plateau south of the Yalnızçam mountain range, the round church of Bana is the only one in open terrain. İşhan , Dörtkilise and Haho are the Turkish names of formerly important Georgian monasteries in the mountains on the edge of the Tortum river valley ( Tortum Çayı ) between Yusufeli and Tortum .

history

View from the southeast. Photo by NJ Marr 1911

Under King Vakhtang I Gorgassali , who ruled in the second half of the 5th century, the Georgian empire Iberia reached its greatest extent and extended in the west over part of the later Tao-Klardschetien. In 575 the Georgian Bagratids built the fortress of Ardanuç. After the Arab Umayyad invasions at the end of the 8th century, Prince Ashot I had the ruined castle rebuilt and made it the capital of Tao-Klardschetien. Even in the 16th century, after the Ottomans had defeated the Georgian empire Samtskhe, Ardanuç was a political center and represented a safe station on a long-distance trade route between Anatolia and the Caucasus .

In the 9th and 10th centuries, when the Bagratids succeeded in uniting the divided principalities, a particularly large number of churches and monasteries were built in Tao-Klardschetien, which is outside the Arab sphere of influence. At the end of the 10th century, Tao-Klardschetien was united with three other principalities to form the Kingdom of Georgia . The monk Grigol Chandsteli (759-861), reported by Giorgi Mertschule from the Chandsta monastery in his 951 hagiography "The Life of Grigol Chandsteli", is said to have founded three monasteries and two nunneries in the 830s and 840s. Other monasteries were founded by Grigol's pupils in the following decades. Many monasteries became famous for the illuminated manuscripts that were copied in them. The collection of writings from Schatberdi from the year 973 is of great importance. It is nicknamed the "Barhal Gospel" because it mentions the new building of the Barhal monastery church (Georgian Parchali ), and this date consequently indicates the terminus ante quem for its completion. Another cultural center was the monastery of Opiza, in which numerous manuscripts were reproduced, including the "Gospel of Opiza" dated 913.

Based on the model of traditional residential buildings (Georgian darbasi ), central buildings were built in Iberia parallel to basilicas from the middle of the 6th century , which later reached a monumental size. The ground plan of such cross-domed churches in the form of a Greek cross formed the basis of Georgian church construction. The forerunners of the design from the 6th century, as they are preserved in Georgia, still appear compact. Their broad structure was massively increased in the churches of the 10th century.

View from the south

Nothing was left of a possible predecessor. There is no historical reference or inscription to date for the ruins visible today. Nevertheless, it is widely believed that Yeni Rabat is identical to the Georgian Shatberdi Monastery. Comparisons of styles reveal a mixed picture: the shape of the drum , the outer diameter of which roughly corresponds to its height, and the number of its windows are typical of churches from the middle of the 10th century (e.g. Dolisqana, around 945). Typological stands Yeni Rabat the churches of Ekeki (Turkish Vişneli , second half 10th century) and Tschangli (monastery ruins in Armenia, first half 11th century) near. According to the overall assessment of the architecture and building decoration, the dating is cautiously to the 1040s.

In the 19th century, the church was owned by Armenians who carried out clearly recognizable restorations on the southeast corner. In 1893, the Russian archaeologist Andreĭ Mikhailovich Pavlinov (1852–1898) published a first short report on the church. A year later, the linguist Nikolai Yakovlevich Marr spent four hours in Yeni Rabat. There was enough time to write a short Georgian inscription and a few Armenian characters on the church and on hewn stone blocks that were built into modern buildings in the neighborhood. Nicole and Jean-Michel Thierry were the first art historians after the Second World War who were allowed to undertake research trips in the then inaccessible northeastern Turkey from the beginning of the 1960s. In 1968 they published the results of their research from Yeni Rabat the previous year. Georgian art historian Wachtang Djobadze attended the church in 1976 and 1983.

architecture

Pseudotrompe on the northeast corner pillar of the drum

The cross-domed church, which is extended by a barrel vault in its west arm , measures 16.7 meters in the east-west direction and 10.7 meters in the north-south direction. The width of the north and south cross arms is 5.6 meters. The semicircular apse hidden behind the straight east wall on the outside is 4.8 meters wide and 4.4 meters deep. It was illuminated by a central window with a round arch. Local farmers broke out the window reveal and enlarged the opening to provide access, as the church was used as a haystack for them.

On both sides the apse is surrounded by side rooms ( pastophoria ) with semicircular east walls, which were connected by doors to the transepts, but not directly to the central apse. Instead, a square niche is sunk into the wall at the corresponding points on the side apse walls. The two adjoining rooms complement the basic plan to form a rectangular structure closed on the outside in the east, from which only the extension of the west arm protrudes. One entrance is on the front side, another entrance on the south side of the west arm.

The outer wall shell consists of hewn and smoothed rectangular blocks of different sizes, which are walled up in approximately flat layers. Door and window arches as well as the outer walls of the drum have been designed with much more care. The upper wall areas in the west and south were best preserved, the wall cladding is completely missing on the other two sides. Only a cone of rubble held together by mortar masses can be seen between the trees. The inner walls were built from mostly uncut and roughly jointed stones. Two thirds of the wall thickness consist of a mortar filling with rubble stones. Formerly still existing painted plaster residues have shown that the inner walls were covered with a layer of plaster and completely painted.

The dome rises above four square arranged Jochen with weakly pronounced arches whose load on of pilasters is derived reinforced wall corners. The 37 centimeter wide pilaster stones protrude from the wall with a thickness of 30 centimeters. The transition at the corners to the circular shape of the drum takes place by means of a combination of pendentives and a bundle of four parallel bead ribs that form a trumpet-like semicircle (pseudotromps) above . Blind arches over twelve pilasters decorate the tambour. The dome construction is blackened by fire, but overall in good condition.

Window on the southern arm of the cross

Apart from the north-west and north-east side, the tambour is also well preserved on the outside. On its outside it is also circular, in contrast to the twelve-sided tambour of Dolisqana. As there, the wall panels of the drum are structured by twelve coupled half-columns, corresponding to the half-columns in Öşk Vank , they have corrugations turned against each other. The pillars are connected by blind arches. The wall surfaces enclosed in this way alternate with deeply cut triangular niches, only the fields in the four main directions are windowed. Triangular niches that ensure a vertical arrangement of the gable walls - mostly on the eastern outer wall at the dividing line between the apse and side rooms - are common in Georgian and Armenian church architecture, but apart from Yeni Rabat they are never found on a drum. Here, the niches serve to give the tambour a three-dimensional appearance and to visually reduce its mass. The number of four windows in the drum is typical of churches from the middle of the 10th century, after which the number of windows increased, in Öşk Vank to 12 and in İşhan to 16. In contrast, the spiral half-columns, which over time have become more static Function in favor of a purely decorative task, to be a further development of İşhan and thus to speak for a construction time not before the middle of the 11th century.

While the north facade was apparently never restored in its desolate condition, repairs with arbitrarily and inappropriately inserted stone blocks can be seen on the south and west sides. This is clear from some of the ornamental stones that were used again. The geometric reliefs on the window reveals on the south and west sides are remarkable. The chain of intertwining semicircles, framed by a spiral bead, was executed with exceptional accuracy, more carefully than the other decorative forms. Possibly another stonemason made these windows. Overall, there are some design innovations in Yeni Rabat that do not fit in with contemporary tradition.

literature

• Wachtang Djobadze: Early Medieval Georgian Monasteries in Historic Tao, Klardjetʿi and Šavšetʿi. (Research on art history and Christian archeology, XVII) Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 1992, pp. 72–77
• Volker Eid : East Turkey. Peoples and cultures between Taurus and Ararat . DuMont, Cologne 1990, pp. 199f, ISBN 3-7701-1455-8
• Thomas Alexander Sinclair: Eastern Turkey: An Architectural and Archaeological Survey. Vol. II. The Pindar Press, London 1989, p. 23

Individual evidence

1. ^ Sinclair, p. 17
2. ↑ Heinz Fähnrich : Grammar of the old Georgian language. Buske, Hamburg 1994, p. 7, ISBN 978-3875480658
3. ^ Edith Neubauer: Old Georgian architecture. Rock towns. Churches. Cave monasteries. Anton Schroll, Vienna / Munich 1976, p. 32f
4. ↑ Djobadze, p 77
5. ↑ Oath, p. 200
6. ^ Bruno Baumgartner: Unknown and less known Georgian monuments in northeast Turkey. ( Memento of the original from February 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF file; 8.08 MB) In: Vakhtang Beridze (Ed.): 1st International Symposium of Georgian Culture. 21.-29. June 2008, p. 183 
7. ↑ Djobadze, pp. 75f
8. ↑ Djobadze, p 77