Mestia Museum: History, Ethnography, Exhibits

The renowned Italian photographer Vittorio Sella visited Svaneti in 1889, 1890, and 1896, capturing images of the Svan landscapes, settlements, and customs of the local population. Vittorio Sella's great-grandson donated the renowned photographer's photographs to the Mestia Museum. His works are currently on display at the museum.

Mestia, the administrative center of the Zemo Svaneti region, is surrounded by mountains at an altitude of 1,500 meters. It can be reached from the town of Zugdidi via a 145-kilometer road that winds between picturesque mountain ranges. For centuries, this sole road leading to Svaneti was covered in snow from late November to mid-April, cutting the region off from the outside world for several months.

Hard-to-reach Svaneti served as a repository for the country's treasures—during the turbulent years of war, church and secular treasures were brought here from across Georgia. Thus, magnificent icons, ancient manuscripts, and other relics have survived to this day and are currently housed in local churches and the Svaneti Historical and Ethnographic Museum.

The museum was founded in 1936. Unique archaeological and ethnographic exhibits are displayed in six permanent exhibition halls. Notable exhibits include 6th-century Syrian bronze censers, 10th-11th-century relics, and ancient parchment manuscripts. Also housed here are a 12th-century Sassanid silver jug, a Byzantine embroidered icon, a 13th-century Venetian decorative cross, also known as the "cross with stones," and other examples of Georgian, Syrian, Byzantine, and European art.

The museum's pride and joy is its rich collection of Georgian manuscripts. Among them are the "Adishi Four-Chapter Gospel" (897), the oldest dated Gospel, the "Jerusalem Canon" (10th century), the "Mestian Four-Chapter Gospel" (1033), and other ancient versions of the New Testament: the handwritten Labskaldi and Jenash Gospels with embossed covers, as well as other embossed and painted examples of Georgian art. Of particular significance is the icon of Sidikhana, which contains a fragment of the Calvary cross and was kept for many centuries in the village of Adishi in Zemo Svaneti.

Read also

• Svaneti Museum in Mestia: History, Ethnography and Crafts
• How People Lived in a Svan House: The Machubi, the Hearth and the Margiani Tower in Mestia