The Peculiarities of the Objects of Medieval Architectonic Plastic Arts from the Fortress of Anacopia in the Universal Cultural Context of the Crimea and North Caucasus

Abstract

The performed research aims at revealing the functional use and initial location of a part of the objects of architectonic plastic arts, most of which decorated the early medieval Christian structures in the fortress complex of Anacopia, and also at revealing historic and cultural links with the neighboring regions of the Byzantine Oecumene: North Caucasus and the Crimea. In the first half of the 10th century the temple was reconstructed due to the new liturgical rules, accepted in Constantinople in the 9th century. It was still devoted to Our Lady, but during the reconstruction appear new facade finish, a par of which is preserved in two entrance portals. After the reconstruction also appeared a dome and a dome drum, and, according to the new features of liturgy which appeared in the Byzantine Empire at the end of the 9th century. The appearance of ornamental intertwined designs near the borders of the kingdom of Abkhazia shows that Abkhazian kings took part in the Christianisation of Alania. Technical similarity is a proof of the existence in the 10th century of a system of united cultural space included into the