АРХИТЕКТУРА НА СТЫКЕ КУЛЬТУР: ХРАМОВЫЙ КОМПЛЕКС ВАРЗАХАНА БЛИЗ БАЙБУРТА В СВЕТЕ НОВЫХ НАХОДОК

Античная древность и средние века. 2020. № 48. С. 368–407.

Vinogradov A.

Varzahan (modern Ugrak near Bayburt in Turkey) is the completely destroyed church
complex located at the junction of cultural worlds: Byzantine and Muslim, Armenian
and Kartvelian. Although its churches were known mainly from W. Bachmann’s
description and photographs, our recent archival fi nds (the photographs of N. Okunev’s
expedition) allow us to reconstruct the appearance and construction history of the
Varzahan churches. For the fi rst time, the appearance of the cross-domed church has
been reconstructed: it was a triconch inscribed into a cross-like outline; the function
of the small church next to the octagon has been discovered: it was a gate church.
The author provides many architectural and decorative analogies to the monuments of
Varzahan. There is a number of unique details indicating that the patron of the major
construction project in Varzahan invited, along with the Byzantine builders from the
Asia Minor, two groups of masters from Tao (probably identical with the two groups of
David Kuropalates in the 960s – early 970s), one oriented to Cappadocia (the triconch
builders), another to the Pontos (the builders of the octagon and the gate church), or
including masters from these regions. The most probable date for this “joint work”
seems the period between 979 and 988, when the “lords” (strategos/doux) of the theme
of Chaldia were David’s allies Chordvanel and Bagrat, the natives of Tao.

Keywords: средневизантийская архитектура

Publication based on the results of: Источниковая база агиологического субстрата топонимов и ономастики Закавказья в VI-XII вв. (2021)