History, Archaeology, Ethnography
Uplistsikhe architectural ensemble is a unity of caves carved in the rock. It is situated in Shida Kartli, on the left bank of the Mtkvari river, at the very end of one of the south spurs of the Kuernacy mountain ridge.
According to the modern scientific papers Uplistsikhe was a town, but there is some disagreement among scholars about the date of its founding and its function as a town.
Conclusions: 1. All kinds of schemes of Uplistsikhe caves and its central area with one or several ramifications, dublicate the schemes of rock burials discovered in Judeh and Asia Minor.
2. Close parallels of the ceiling outlines and the traces of frameworks are found at Etruria’s, Lykia’s and Paphlgonia’s rock burials dated to the 5th-4th centuries B.C. 3.Separate architectural details, in all their likehood the earliest one (doorways, thresholds, rock-cut berths) are characteristic of burials only and are not seen at any other kind of structures.
Georgian Academy of Sciences
Center of Archaeological Researches