Architecture at the Crossroads of Cultures: The Church Complex in Varzahan near Bayburt in the Light of New Finds

Abstract

Varzahan (modern Ugrak near Bayburt in Turkey) is the completely destroyed church complex located at the junction of cultural worlds: Byzantine and Muslim, Armenian and Kartvelian. Although its churches were known mainly from W. Bachmann’s description and photographs, our recent archival finds (the photographs of N. Okunev’s expedition) allow us to reconstruct the appearance and construction history of the Varzahan churches. For the first time, the construction of the cross-domed church has been reconstructed: it was a triconch inscribed into a cross-like outline; the function of the small church next to the octagon has been discovered: it was a gate church. The author provides many architectural and decorative analogies to the monuments of Varzahan. There is a number of unique details indicating that the patron of the major construction project in Varzahan invited, along with the Byzantine builders from the Asia Minor, two groups of masters from Tao (probably identical with the two crews of David Kuropalates in the 960s – early 970s), one oriented to Cappadocia (the triconch builders), another to the Pontos (the builders of the octagon and the gate church), or including masters from these regions. The most probable date for this “joint work” seems the period between 979 and 988, when the “lords” (strategos/doux) of the theme of Chaldia were David’s allies Chordvanel and Bagrat, the natives of Tao.