The medieval South Caucasus

The volume serves as an introduction to what its editors have chosen to call the "artistic cultures" prevalent during the Middle Ages in the region of the South Caucasus. Although far from comprehensive in terms of material, chronology and geography, the volume intends to raise awareness of a region whose artistic wealth and cultural diversity has remained relatively unknown to most medievalists. Stretching from Eastern Anatolia and the Black Sea in the West to the Caspian Sea in the East, and from the snow-capped Great Caucasus mountain range in the north to the Armenian highlands in the south, medieval southern Caucasia was originally divided into the kingdom of Caucasian Albania, Greater and Lesser Armenia, and western and eastern Georgia, that is, the kingdoms of Lazica (Egrisi) and Iberia (Kartli) respectively. Together, these entities made the South Caucasus a true frontier region between Europe and Asia and a place of transcultural exchange. Its official Christianization began as early as in the fourth century, even before Constantine the Great founded Constantinople or had himself been converted to Christianity. During the subsequent centuries, the region became a well-conn