The Sokhumi stela is a piece of ancient Greek art, a marble gravestone (stela) depicting a woman and two children, found in 1953 underwater in the Black Sea near Sukhumi in Abkhazia/Georgia. It is now on display at the Sukhumi State Museum. [1] [2]
The Sokhumi stela is a piece of ancient Greek art, a marble gravestone (stela) depicting a woman and two children, found in 1953 underwater in the Black Sea near Sukhumi in Abkhazia/Georgia. It is now on display at the Sukhumi State Museum. [1] [2]
The monument is a marble slab of rectangular shape, 157 cm long, 92 cm wide and 11-12 cm thick. The grayish-spotted color of the marble, not found locally, suggests the stone was exported from the outside to a Greek colony in Colchis, on the territory of modern-day Sukhumi, possibly Dioscurias. It was found underwater, at the mouth of the small river Basla/Besleti, in 1953 and studied in detail by Mikhail Trapsh and Otar Lordkipanidze. The monument, dated by Lordkipanidze to the period of 430–420 BC, stands out for its artistic qualities among the marble bas-reliefs from ancient Greek cities of that period. [1] [2]
The front side of the tombstone features three sculptured human figures, apparently in a scene of bidding farewell to a dead woman. The woman, seated in an armchair, hugs with her right hand a grieving boy leaning against her knees. The background depicts a young girl in a girdled (belted) Attic peplos holding a small box, probably with funeral gifts to the dead person. [1] [2]
Anubis, also known as Inpu, Inpw, Jnpw, or Anpu in Ancient Egyptian is the god of death, mummification, embalming, the afterlife, cemeteries, tombs, and the Underworld, in ancient Egyptian religion, usually depicted as a canine or a man with a canine head.
A stele, or occasionally stela, when derived from Latin, is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected in the ancient world as a monument. The surface of the stele often has text, ornamentation, or both. These may be inscribed, carved in relief, or painted.
Gagra is a town in Abkhazia/Georgia, sprawling for 5 km on the northeast coast of the Black Sea, at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains. Its subtropical climate made Gagra a popular health resort inImperial Russian and Soviet times.
Ancient Egyptian art refers to art produced in ancient Egypt between the 6th millennium BC and the 4th century AD, spanning from Prehistoric Egypt until the Christianization of Roman Egypt. It includes paintings, sculptures, drawings on papyrus, faience, jewelry, ivories, architecture, and other art media. It is also very conservative: the art style changed very little over time. Much of the surviving art comes from tombs and monuments, giving more insight into the ancient Egyptian afterlife beliefs.
Sukhumi or Sokhumi, also known by its Abkhaz name Aqwa, is a city in a wide bay on the Black Sea's eastern coast. It is both the capital and largest city of the Republic of Abkhazia, which has controlled it since the Abkhazia war in 1992–93. However, internationally Abkhazia is considered part of Georgia. The city, which has an airport, is a port, major rail junction and a holiday resort because of its beaches, sanatoriums, mineral-water spas and semitropical climate. It is also a member of the International Black Sea Club.
The ethnic cleansing of Georgians in Abkhazia, also known in Georgia as the genocide of Georgians in Abkhazia, refers to the ethnic cleansing, massacres, and forced mass expulsion of thousands of ethnic Georgians living in Abkhazia during the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict of 1992–1993 and 1998 at the hands of Abkhaz separatists and their allies. Armenians, Greeks, Russians, and opposing Abkhazians were also killed. In 2007, 267,345 Georgian civilians were registered as internally displaced persons (IDPs). The ethnic cleansing and massacres of Georgians have been officially recognized by Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) conventions in 1994, 1996, and again in 1997 during the Budapest, Lisbon, and Istanbul summits, which condemned the "perpetrators of war crimes committed during the conflict." On May 15, 2008, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution A/RES/62/249, which "Emphasizes the importance of preserving the property rights of refugees and internally displaced persons from Abkhazia, Georgia, including victims of reported "ethnic cleansing," and calls upon all the Member States to deter persons under their jurisdiction from obtaining property within the territory of Abkhazia, Georgia in violation of the rights of returnees." The UN Security Council passed a series of resolutions in which it appealed for a cease-fire.
Colchian culture is Neolithic - an early Bronze Age and Iron Age culture of the western Caucasus, mostly in western Georgia. It was partially succeeded by the Koban culture in northern and central Caucasus.
Ulpiana was an ancient Roman city located in what is today Kosovo. It was also named Justiniana Secunda. Ulpiana is situated in the municipality of Lipjan. The Minicipium Ulpiana - Iustiniana Secunda was proclaimed archaeological park under permanent protection of Kosovo by the Kosova Council for Cultural Heritage in 2016. The protection zone of the Archaeological Park has 96.23 ha and includes also Justinopolis, constructed during the reign of Justinian. Ulpiana was among the largest settlements in the Balkans of the late antiquity.
This article refers to the history of Abkhazia from its pre-historic settlement by the lower-paleolithic hunter-gatherers to the post-1992-1993 war situation.
The War in Abkhazia was fought between Georgian government forces for the most part and Abkhaz separatist forces, Russian government armed forces and North Caucasian militants between 1992 and 1993. Ethnic Georgians who lived in Abkhazia fought largely on the side of Georgian government forces. Ethnic Armenians and Russians within Abkhazia's population largely supported the Abkhazians and many fought on their side. The separatists received support from thousands of North Caucasus and Cossack militants and from the Russian Federation forces stationed in and near Abkhazia.
Phasis was an ancient and early medieval city on the eastern Black Sea coast, founded in the 7th or 6th century BC as a colony of the Milesian Greeks at the mouth of the eponymous river in Colchis. Its location today could be the port city of Poti, Georgia. Its ancient bishopric became a Latin Catholic titular see of Metropolitan rank.
Yoʼnal Ahk III, also known as Ruler 5, was an ajaw of Piedras Negras, an ancient Maya settlement in Guatemala. He ruled during the Late Classic Period, from 758 to 767 AD. Yoʼnal Ahk III ascended to the throne upon the death of Itzam Kʼan Ahk II, who may have been Yoʼnal Ahk's father. He was succeeded by his probable brother, Haʼ Kʼin Xook in around 767 AD. Yoʼnal Ahk III left behind two surviving stelae at Piedras Negras, namely Stelae 14 and 16, the former of which has been called one of the finest niche stelae, according to Simon Martin and Nikolai Grube.
Tsebelda culture is a late antiquity to early medieval archaeological culture in the territory of the Apsilae or Tsebelda tribe, located in Abkhazia, Georgia on the Black Sea coast. The culture is known mainly from excavation of burial sites, starting in 1959, which yielded a large collection of artefacts.
Eshera is a village in the Sukhumi district in Abkhazia. It is a climatic-balneotherapeutic resort on the Black Sea coast, at the right side of Gumista river. Its altitude above sea level is around 30 m, the distance to Sukhumi is 16 km. Once a part of the Abkhazian ASSR of the Georgian SSR, Eshera is controlled by the de facto independent Republic of Abkhazia since 1993.
Sergey Sangalov is a Russian contemporary artist. Born in Sukhumi in the former USSR and now capital of Abkhazia, he trained in Rostov and is an abstract painter.
Caracol is a large ancient Maya archaeological site, located in what is now the Cayo District, of Belize. It is situated approximately 40 kilometres (25 mi) south of Xunantunich, and the town of San Ignacio, and 15 km (9.3 mi) from the Macal River. It rests on the Vaca Plateau, at an elevation of 500 m (1,600 ft) above sea-level, in the foothills of the Maya Mountains. Long thought to be a tertiary center, it is now known that the site was one of the most important regional political centers of the Maya Lowlands during the Classic Period. Caracol covered approximately 200 square kilometres (77 sq mi), covering an area much larger than present-day Belize City, the largest metropolitan area in the country, and supported more than twice the modern city's population.
The Sphinx of Naxos, also Sphinx of the Naxians, now in the Archaeological Museum of Delphi, is a 2.22 meter tall marble statue of a sphinx, a mythical creature with the head of a woman, the chest and wings composed of the impressive feathers of a prey bird turned upward, and the body of a lioness. The Sphinx stood on a 10 meters column that culminated in one of the first Ionic capitals, and was erected next to the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, the religious center of Ancient Greece, in 560 BCE.
Nicopsis, Nikopsis, or Nikopsia was a medieval fortress and town on the northeastern Black Sea coast, somewhere between the towns of Tuapse, Russia, and New Athos, Georgia. It features in the medieval Greek and Georgian sources as a Byzantine outpost and then as the northwestern extreme of the Kingdom of Georgia. A center of Christianity in the region known as Zichia, Nikopsis was at times a Byzantine bishopric and was believed to be a burial place of the apostle Simon the Canaanite.
The Duchy of Tskhumi was a duchy (saeristavo) in a medieval Georgia. Ruled by a House of Shervashidze, the duchy existed from 8th to 14th century, in the north-western part of Georgia and comprised territories around modern Sukhumi, Georgia.
The Anukhva church is a ruined medieval church on the right bank of Psirtskha river at the village of Anukhva (Ankhua) in Gudauta District in Abkhazia, an entity in the South Caucasus with a disputed political status. It is located in the hills immediately south of the town of New Athos, at the Black Sea coastline.