The Mamtsvara church is cut into the rock about two kilometres northeast of Burdiani village in Sagarejo Municipality. Sources assign it to the early Middle Ages, and the monument was found only recently: in the early two thousands a local man pointed it out, and in the same year a team of speleologists from the medieval archaeology department of the Georgian National Museum surveyed the rock church.
The church has two naves, almost equal in size and entirely hewn out of the rock. The stone is hard to work, so the walls have stayed uneven. The naves are joined by three tall arched openings, also cut in the rock, and an apse is built onto the church from the south.
The excavations uncovered a whole hermitage life around it: quarries, a monk cell and several stone burial chambers. The four sided stone altar table found in the apse was handed to the National Museum for restoration. Later the ground was cleared of landslides and stones, the collapsed upper part of the cave was propped with wooden posts, and gravel was laid for waterproofing and covered with turf.
๐ก Tip
- A two nave church cut entirely out of the rock
- Found in the early two thousands by a local resident
- Quarries, a monk cell and burial chambers were excavated nearby
๐ Getting there
- Burdiani village, Sagarejo Municipality, Kakheti
- The Build Route button will take you to the spot
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