სიახლეები ქართულ ეპიგრაფიკაში

Abstract

Examples of Georgian epigraphy preserved at the Simon Janashia State Museum of Georgia have been investigated in the frame of the project ‘Samples of Georgian Epigraphy from the Depositories of the Georgian National Museum’ (#FR-21-5320) funded by LEPL Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation of Georgia. The article looks at four more or less known inscriptions kept in the museum and I think the scholarly community will find my interpretation of reading of the inscriptions interesting. The inscriptions are discussed in chronological order.

1. GSM-732, base of a stela (75x75x67 cm), Damblutis Khevi (turn of the 6^th-7^th cc).

In 1968, a stone base of a stela was discovered in the interior of an early medieval church excavated in the village-site located at Damblutis Khevi, Dmanisi Municipality (archaeologist V. Japaridze). On the top it has a hole for accommodating a stela, and its side – northern facet features a badly damaged three-line asomtavruli inscription. The inscription was studied by historian N. Shoshiashvili. According to his reading, the text of the inscription says about having mercy on those who erected the cross. The beginning of the first line of the inscription is damaged; the second line provides a female name ‘Sandukht’, and the inscription reads as follows: [Jesus Christ, have mercy on someone] and Sandukht and their children who erected this cross, amen’. The name ‘Sandukht’ is unknown to Georgian onomasticon, while it was popular in Armenia. St. Queen Sandukht, the first Armenian female martyr, was the daughter of King Sanatruk of Armenia and a disciple of St. Thaddeus the Apostle (see: Movses Khorenatsi, ‘History of Armenia’). St. Sandukht is not recognized as a saint of the Chalcedonic church. The turn of the 6^th-7^th centuries, which is a presumable date of making the base of Dambluti, is the time when the schism between Georgian and Armenian churches was in its final phase. In my opinion, around this period it was still possible to give a Georgian noble woman the name of an Armenian saint, or it can be presumed that the inscription on the base mentions ethnically Armenian Sandukht married to a Georgian nobleman.

1. GSM-292, a hewn stone of the church masonry (96x52x14 cm) with a nineline inscription; origin unknown (1163).

The beginning of the accurately dated asomtavruli inscription is lost. The first surviving word is a female name ‘Tinatin’, which is clearly visible in the copy made by me. The following part of the inscription is read in the same way as it is in the catalog published in 1953 by A. Bakradze and S. Bolkvadze. In the inscription the donor implores the future owner of the church not to disturb his grave. Presumably, Tinatin was the owner of the church, i.e., a high-ranking secular figure, probably widowed and childless, as there is no mention of a husband or a child in the extant part of the inscription. The inscription is accompanied by an accurate date – the year 1163, which is the period of the reign of King Giorgi III (1156-1185) and as yet the earliest evidence of the name ‘Tinatin’. The inscription on the tympanum of the door of Lisi Tskhrakara (Kareli Municipality, The Ozhora Gorge, presently an occupied territory), dating to the 13^th century, mentions a Tinatin along with other names. There is no doubt that ‘Tinatin’, the name of the daughter of King Rostevan of Arabia and the main character of Rustaveli’s ‘The Knight in the Panther’s Skin’, was pretty popular at the time the poem was written (second half of the 12^th century).

1. GSM – 680, 681; Vanis Kvabebi, inscription on the tympanum of the door.

The inscription was discovered as a result of the archaeological excavations carried out at Vanis Kvabebi in 1954. It was first published by art historian G. Gaprindashvili. The inscription mentions the grand duke of Tmogvi, whose cryptic name is Smchm. The inscription dates to the final years of the thirteenth century – prior to 1283. The huge earthquake which occurred in 1283 destroyed the monastery of Vanis Kvabebi, which means that the church could not have been built following this calamity. From the beginning of the 13^th century, successors of Varam, son of Zakaria, the second branch of the Mkhargrdzelis owned the city-fortress of Tmogvi, situated near Vanis Kvabebi and the monastery was also under their ownership. They probably possessed Tmogvi Fortress and the monastery till the end of the 13^th, or the beginning of the 14^th century, while from the second half of the century rulers of Tmogvi left Javakheti to settle down in Kartli.
Ruins of a domed church were excavated on the territory of Tmogvi Fortress in 1988, which yielded a twelve-line inscription (the inscription is kept at Simon Janashia State Museum of Georgia). The inscription says that the church is dedicated to St. Marine and was built in 1303 by a Saminam. Sources provide no information about a historical person of this name, but he was definitely an owner of Tmogvi Fortress. In my opinion, the ‘Smchm’, documented in the inscription of Vanis Kvabebi and the ‘Saminam’ of the church of St. Marine are the same person. Georgian epigraphic monuments reveal cases when asomtavruli and nuskhuri graphemes ‘n’ and ‘ch’ are mistakenly written due to their similar outline. I consider that there should be ‘Smnm’ instead of ‘Smchm’ in the inscription of Vanis Kvabebi. Apparently, Saminam is one of the last rulers of the feudal house of Mkhargrdzelis who owned Tmogvi Fortress.