Dodoti Tskhrakara

Dodoti Tskhrakara Church (“Dodoti Nine Doors Church”)is a monument of Georgian architecture from the early 10^th century.

It is located in the historical Shida Kartli region, in the gorge of the Prone River, near the village of Zemo Dodoti. The church is severely damaged.

It is a hall church, which was built with straight rows of cleanly polished wine-colored stone squares, mixed with roughly processed stones of various sizes. The inscription carved on the side of the southern door mentions that the church was built at the beginning of the 10^th century by the local feudal lord, Ivane Tbeli. At the end of the 10^th century or the beginning of the 11^th century, Kavtar Tbeli built an ambulatory for it, which indicates that Dodoti was part of the Tbeli feudal domain. The double-arched entrance in the southern part of the ambulatory is particularly noteworthy. Between the arches is a round column, which is finished with a carved capital. The entrance is richly carved with plant ornaments both inside and outside. The western entrance was also decorated.

The carvings of the ambulatory of the Dodoti church stand out from the decoration of the entire church in terms of the quality and complexity of its execution.

 

Literature: М е п и с а ш в и л и  P. С., Ц и н ц а д з е  В. Г., Архитектура нагорной части исторической провинции Грузии – Шида-Картли, Тб., 1975.

 

R. Mepisashvili

V. Tsintsadze