International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Nina Burtchuladze 
Tbilisi, Georgia; 
[e-mail]
The 12
th
Century Painted Epistyle with Georgian Inscriptions 
on Mount Sinai and Sinaitic-Georgian Icons in Svaneti 
(On the Georgian Artistic Workshop at Sinai)
St. Catherine’s monastery of Mount Sinai was a very important site of the spiritual life of 
the Georgians. Traces of their cultural activities have been most explicitly preserved there. The 
monastery houses hundreds of Georgian manuscripts, big part of which is already published. As It 
is known, the treasury of monastery also contains several icons that are related to Georgia and the 
Georgian brotherhood which, according to the written sources, lived in the monastery throughout 
centuries (see: six icons complex of the 11
th
-12
th
century created by the Georgian monk Ioane 
Tokhabi, two icons of St. George with the images of Georgian King David the Builder (11
th
-12
th
cc.) 
and Georgian priest and monk Ioane Iberian (XII-XIII cc.) and polyptych (XIV c.) with the images 
of Georgian Saints accompanied with only Georgian explanatory inscriptions, etc).
Some years ago I discovered Georgian inscriptions on the very well-known 12
th
century Sinaitic 
epistyle with the Dodecaorton, which earlier was attributed to Cyprus workshop by K.Waitzmann. 
One of them – the painter’s autograph – is easy to read, others are badly damaged. They are written 
on two scenes of Dodecaorton with Old Georgian alphabet “Asomtavruli” by good calligrapher. The 
inscriptions are clear evidence of Georgian origin of the epistyle. From this point of view it is very 
important to know that the images of this wooden beam have the closest parallels among patterns of 
the 11
th
-12
th
centuries Georgian icons, murals and miniature-paintings (see: the icon of the Zarzma 
Virgin, paintings of the Ateni Sioni, illustrations of the Gelati Gospel etc.)
More importantly, I was able to find a group of icons in Svaneti that are closest analogues to 
Sinaitic ones. They are very similar in typology, iconography, style, configuration of boards, and 
ornamental motifs of their back-side decoration.
There are many other facts and arguments to confirm that the Georgian monks at St. Catherine’s 
monastery had their icon-painting workshop there. They maintained close ties with their homeland 
and those compatriots who traveled to the holy mountain to pray to God before starting their own 
work in Georgia.
The artistic production of the Georgians at Sinai is a significant part of both the Byzantine 
and Georgian cultural heritage and ecclesiastic art that I want to present to the attention of my 
colleagues on the congress.

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