ARCHITECTURAL FRAGMENTS AND RELIEVES FROM VILLAGE LIPI (LOWER KARTLI)
Nino Silagadze
Associate Professor in Art History at Faculty of Humanities, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University
Abstract
The church remnants are traced near village Lipi in Tetritskaro Municipality. This one-nave building has stoa from the south. The walls have been built with big rude stones. Relief details inside are of great interest – they are effigies of Cross potent on the both sides of altar. In stoa we have two more relieves. One is ornamental stone placed at the entrance, next – unidentified relief on the massive stone, presumably, the scheme of a building. If it is really a scheme, it should be a symbolic expression of world-celebrated Christian monument, like any church from the Holy Land. Nothing has been found like before in Georgia.Four stelae with Zoroastrian elements are fixed for the first time in the neighborhood. According to stylistic data, church and stelae are to be dated by Early Christian Epoch (6th -7th cc.)
