The Karneti chapel stands in the Paravnistskali gorge at the foot of a cliff, in the area of Khorenia village in Akhalkalaki Municipality, and is listed in the national category. The years of construction are known to be 1033 and 1048, while the south chapel was added as late as the 14th century.
The facing is drawn in smooth stones, while part of the walls inside is set in uneven stone. The entrance is on the south with an architrave door, a tall arched window sits in the west wall, and one of the same kind must have stood in the east wall but has not survived. A semicircular apse is separated by side walls whose profiled capitals carried the arch of the conch, and of the vault arches only a single northern capital survives.
An Asomtavruli inscription survives above the entrance asking glory for John the Golden Haired, Catholicos of Kartli. The south chapel projects east of the church axis, its entrance made exactly parallel to that of the church, with an arched window in each of the east and west walls, the eastern one framed outside by a plain rod profile. A north chapel existed too, but it is ruined so far that its purpose cannot be established without clearing.
π‘ Tip
- An Asomtavruli inscription with the name of a Catholicos above the entrance
- The years of construction are known
- Only a single capital survives of the vault arches
π Getting there
- Khorenia village, Akhalkalaki Municipality, Samtskhe Javakheti
- The Build Route button will take you to the spot
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