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Document Details : Title: The Identity of the Donor of the Case of Queen Tamar's Cross Author(s): BURTCHULADZE, Nana , GAGOSHIDZE, Giorgi , GOGOLADZE, Andro Journal: Le Muséon Volume: 137 Issue: 3-4 Date: 2024 Pages: 495-521 DOI: 10.2143/MUS.137.3.3293898 Abstract : This article is dedicated to one of the most important items of the medieval Georgian treasure, the case of Queen Tamar’s pendant cross, which has a form of a diptych and is an excellent work of Georgian art. The cross itself is a reliquary which contains a thin cross carved out of the True Cross. It had been kept at the Khobi Monastery over centuries until it was sent to Paris by the government of Georgia’s First Democratic Republic for safety reasons together with an important part of the national treasure in 1921. The evacuated objects were returned in 1945. Presently it is held at the Georgian National Museum. There are three supplicatory inscriptions on the case. One is executed on the back of the cross, the second on the inner side of the left wing of the case, and the third one runs along the four facets of the right wing of the case. The first cites Queen Tamar, in the second inscription the place where the name of the author had to be written is deliberately damaged, while the third mentions Eristavt-Eristavi (Grand Duke) Shergir Dadiani and his family members. The identity of the donor of the case has recently been clarified by G. Gagoshidze after reading the damaged part of the second inscription. The initial donor of the object was a certain Egnate, whose identification becomes possible with the help of agapes of the Georgian Monastery of the Cross in Jerusalem. He turned out to have been the abbot of the Khobi Monastery in the second half of the 13th century. As far as the inscription of Shergir is concerned, it became clear that the names of this person and his family members were added to the text later. |
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