The Katskhi pillar is a natural
limestone monolith located at the village of Katskhi in western Georgian region
of Imereti, near the town of Chiatura. It is approximately 130 ft high, and
overlooks the little river valley of Katskhura, a right affluent of the
Q'virila. The rock, with visible church wrecks on its top surface of around 150
m2, has been venerated by locals as the Pillar of Life, symbolizing the True
Cross, and has become surrounded by legends. It remained unclimbed by
researchers and unsurveyed until 1944 and was more systematically studied from
1999 to 2009. These studies showed the early medieval hermitage, dating from
the 9th or 10th century. A Georgian inscription paleographic ally dated to the
13th century suggests that the hermitage was still extant at that time. Spiritual
activity associated with the pillar started to recuperate in the 1990s and the
monastery building had been restored within the framework of a state-funded
program by 2009.
In historical records, the
Katskhi pillar is first mentioned by the 18th-century Georgian scholar Prince
Vakhushti, who reports in his Geographic Description of the Kingdom of Georgia:
"There is a rock within the ravine standing like a pillar, considerably
high. There is a little church on the top of the rock, but noone is able to
ascend it; nor know they how to do that." No other written accounts of
monastic life or ascents survive. A number of local legends surround the
pillar. One of them has it that the top of the rock was connected by a long
iron chain to the dome of the Katskhi church, situated at a distance of around
1.5 km from the pillar.
In July 1944 a group led by the
mountaineer Alexander Japaridze and the writer Levan Gotua made the first
documented ascent of the Katskhi pillar. Vakhtang Tsintsadze, an architecture
specialist with the group, reported in his 1946 paper that the wrecks discovered
on top of the rock were remains of 2 churches, dating from the 5th
& 6th centuries and associated with a stylist practice, a form of Christian
asceticism. Since 1999, the Katskhi pillar has become the subject of more
systematic research. Based on further studies and archaeological digs conducted
in 2006, Giorgi Gagoshidze, an art historian with the Georgian National Museum,
re-dated the structures to the 9th & 10th century. He
concluded that this multifaceted was composed of a monastery church and cells
for hermits. Discovery of the leftovers of a wine cellar also undermined the
idea of exciting ascetism flourishing on the pillar. In 2007, a slight
limestone plate with the asomtavruli Georgian inscriptions was found,
paleographically dated to the 13th century and revealing the name of a certain
"Giorgi", responsible for the construction of three hermit cells. The
inscription also makes mention of the Pillar of Life, echoing the popular
tradition of veneration of the rock as a symbol of the True Cross.
