Yialia: the Georgian mission at the monastery of Panagia Chrysogialiotissa

At the Georgian monastery of Panagia Chrysogialiotissa near Gialia, the excavators found that the church of Agios Nikolaos had been a two-storey building with an arched crypt holding ossuaries, and the Department of Antiquities report concludes that the monks were buried there¹. The Georgian Mission, directed by David Mindorashvili, dug at the monastery from 2006, and the report for 2008 calls that year the fourth season. Giorgos Philotheou represented the Department of Antiquities as Archaeological Officer, and the Georgian Ministry of Culture, Protection of Monuments and Sports co-sponsored the work².

In 2008 the team studied the area around the monastery, expecting artefacts contemporary with the later monastery. South of it they fully studied a cistern of 10 x 3 x 5 m, dated by the report to the 12th century, and found agricultural pits with clay-plastered walls dated to the 10th-11th centuries, overlain by dwellings of the 17th-18th centuries, by which time the monastery had ceased functioning². Sixteen graves lay on each of the four sides of the monastery, twelve of them south of it, with ceramic and glass grave goods dated to the 14th-16th centuries². Finds included pottery of the 11th-18th centuries, some with Greek and Georgian inscriptions, and twenty-nine coins of the 14th-15th centuries². The report calls the monastery's design and the excavated material of great importance for the study of Georgian-Cypriot relationships in the medieval period².

A further season ran from 12 September to 8 October 2009, funded by the Georgian National Office for the Conservation of Cultural Heritage. It aimed to document the foundations of the church of Agios Nikolaos and define its construction phases. George Gagoshidze studied the church from an artistic point of view and Tengiz Gabunia drew its plans¹. The church measured 11 x 4 m; four ossuaries in the crypt held scattered bones and many clay vessels, mainly bowls of the 12th-15th centuries¹. The report says excavation would continue in 2010¹. A Georgian and English monograph by Iulon Gagoshidze, Mindorashvili and George Gagoshidze appeared in Tbilisi in 2015³.