Paper long abstract:

This paper focuses on the close semantic, semiotic and motivic correspondences between the Central Eurasian (Hunnic: Sozomenos, Jordanes, Prokopius; Alano-Sarmatian and Ossetian: e.g. Jacobson 1993; Jacobson-Tepfer 2015; Colarusso & Salbiev [eds]: 2016: 160-181; Turkic: e.g. Sinor 1982: 223-257; Mongolic: Koppe 1993; Bawden 2003; Hungarian: Veszprémy & Schaer 1999) and the Arthurian epic tradition (Malory's Le Morte Darthur, Chrétien's Charrette, Lanceloet and the Deer with the White Foot, etc.; Littleton 1978, 1994), regarding the episode of the pursued doe (AaTh 401; "The White Animal", Littleton & Malcor 1994: 102-103).

Since the innovative and thought-provoking book of Littleton & Malcor (1994) it is relatively well-known that there are numerous close similarities between the Arthurian and the Caucasian Nart heroes, heroines and narrative motifs, e.g. the Lady of the Lake, the Sword in the Stone episode, the magical cauldron called the Nartamongæ, or "Revealer of the Narts" in the Nart epic. Among many other close correspondences appears the hunt of the white animal (or white hart, stag, deer or hind; Loomis 1949: 68-70; Pschmadt 1911), but Littleton and Malcor wrote just a brief and undetailed passage on this hunt. Since the authors did not notice the connection between the bridges leading to the Otherworld of Celtic tradition (perilous bridge) and Caucasian folklore (originated from the Zoroastrian Mythology: Chinvat Bridge), the motif of the bridge leading to the otherworldly castle is only casually mentioned by them in the part reviewing the hunt of a white animal.

I argue that the presence of the deer hunt motive sequence in the Caucasian Nart Epic, in the Hungarian Origin Myth where the pursuing brothers marry the daughters of the Alan king (cf. Alano-Sarmatians), and in the Arthurian Legends has historical reasons and it did not happen by chance.

I am going to shed a new light on the entire motive sequence in question with the methods of historical-comparative folklore studies and text analysis.

Paper long abstract:

The paper deals with the identification of the figural representation containing solar sign on the Akura church.

The Akura Mama Daviti (St. Father David Garejeli, one of The Thirteen Assyrian Fathers) church is located in two kilometers away from Akura, a village in Telavi Municipality, Kakheti region (eastern Georgia).

On the eastern façade of the three-nave basilica is a set of stones laid out in large size concentric circle within which is a two-stepped round niche bearing a badly damaged image of a bearded man. Similarly hardly discernible are the human heads with haloes arranged diagonally on four corners in the section between the niche and the circle. There are red radially arranged lines (rays) around the central image; with the same color are painted the figures.

The Akura church construction was studied by Acad. G. Chibinashvili, who, basing upon historical documents investigated that it was built in 855 CE by famous religious figure Illarion Kartveli (Hillarion the Georgian) for his mother and sister.

The eastern façade mural and its schematic design were published in the eighties of the twenty century by T. Sheviakova who considered the painting already quite damaged by that time, to be contemporary with the construction. According to her, the man in the center of the circle is the Savior while diagonally placed figures are the images of angels and the radial rays might well be the solar sign to be associated with astral cult.

Besides that the façade wall painting is, with some exceptions, unusual for Georgian architectural monuments, the iconography of this painting is itself quite unique: interdisciplinary study of the composition has shown that it illustrates a theme quite rare for Christian art: the representation of Sun-Christ and Seasons.

This unique composition reflects both the pre-Christian cosmogony and Christian Creation wherein Sun-Christ, Logos appears to be the Creator of the universe ["Above the sun there shall rise his name (Ps. 71:17), "It was you who set all the boundaries of the earth; you made both summer and winter" (Ps 74:17)]. It visualizes the Christian conception, contemplation of celestial realm both by physical and transcendental viewpoint, when Sun-Christ is the source of the physical, moral, and spiritual light, and the ever-moving Seasons - the symbol of eternal life of Christians.

Paper short abstract:

Schedule on Oct 12 or 13 i.e. not Oct 10 or 11.

Paper long abstract:

The intended paper deals with the imagery of gravestones and photographs of Southern Georgia, a region bordering with Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The period from the abolition of serfdom (1861-1864) to the Russian revolutions (1905-1917) falls exactly within the time that the folk tradition of making gravestones was still alive and studio photography had spread widely throughout the Caucasus. At the same time, the yet colonial nation was experiencing cardinal socio-cultural changes, also reflected in the prestige of having a splendid photographic portrait taken in one's lifetime and a well-decorated gravestone afterwards. This is, somehow, a continuation of the medieval tradition of donor portraits and early-modern easel painting but in a merely common way of secularization, which created new forms of religious aspiration. The surfaces of gravestones and photographs are compared with each other, in their anthropomorphic manifestations and world of objects: human images with tools, weapons and other belongings. All these materials provide us with data on diverse social strata, their daily activities, religious beliefs, and expectations of posthumous life. In this case, the gravestone-photography opposition facilitates understanding of the present and the afterlife, with all their real-to-symbolic attributes and expressed feelings of joy or sorrow. The images of remembrance in Southern Georgia culturally belong to local ethnicities (Georgians, Armenians, Azeri) and their confessions (various denominations of Christianity, Islam, and some signs of Paganism), and in these multiple intersections we can outline the particular and universal features of their visual vocabulary. Inscriptions on gravestones or photographs, carrying the folkloric values or ethnographic knowledge, are another key for understanding the imagery. They fill up and contextualize the images of deceased with notes on their lives, death causes, and ascribed personal qualities. Thus, the images of remembrance are significant primary sources for the interdisciplinary history of this multiethnic region of Georgia in the late nineteenth century, reconstructed and analyzed through gravestones and photographs. This paper is based on the photography collections of the National Library and the gravestones, photographically recorded within the project Memorial Monuments of Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries in Georgia (2018-2021), funded by the Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation and being conducted at the Chubinashvili National Research Centre.