Divine Beauty: King Tamar's Cross

 Tamar: King of Kings, Queen of Queens

It was 1202, and Rukn ad-Din, the Seljük sultan of Rum, had great plans for Georgia (Rayfield, 113). He wasn’t quite king yet, but he had already won Erzurum from the Georgians in the past year, and replaced their vassal with his brother, Moghis ed-Din Toghrul. The Georgian overlords had been sent scurrying home with their tails between their legs, and now the rest of Georgia sprawled out before him, ripe for the taking. Neither their simpleton queen nor her hot-headed husband would pose a threat. In this jolly state of mind, Rukn ad-Din wrote Tamar a letter, in which he declared, “every woman is feeble-minded,” and insulted her honor as woman and queen. He threatened the extermination of all of Christian Transcaucasia which resisted him. Appended: Rukn ad-Din would concede to marry Tamar, if she converted to Islam. If she did not, he would happily take her as his concubine.

Rukn ad-Din’s envoy arrived in Tamar’s court and read the letter––one can only imagine in what tone––and chaos swept the court. The interior minister leapt on him and tackled him to the ground. When the envoy made his swift exit, a Georgian army followed him all the way home. In the midst of all the chaos, Tamar remained stately on her throne. Calmly, and very politely, she told the envoy to pass on the following message: “You rely on gold and numerous warriors, I on God’s power.”

Tamar, as was tradition, accompanied her army to the last church on Georgian land, this time the monastery of Vardzia. Rukn ad-Din was routed in southern Tao at Basiani, and Tamar turned to helping paupers. During all this she found time to secure additional military victories in Erzurum, Kars, and an enormous swathe of the Black Sea coast, which she justified with the claim that she was avenging the robbery of Georgian monks bringing gifts to her Holy Cross monastery in Jerusalem. 

Despite many attempts at rebellion and two marriages, Tamar remained mepeta-mepe, dedopalta-dedopali, the king of kings and queen of queens, from the moment she ascended to the throne until her death (Rayfield, 116). Under Tamar’s rulership, Georgian borders grew well past what they had ever been, and what they ever would be. After her death in 1213, she was canonized by the Orthodox Church, and was considered by some contemporary Georgians to be “the fourth member of the Trinity.”

There is perhaps no object better suited to conveying her political, military, and, of course, religious, power than her gold enkolpion. It likely takes inspiration from the Crux gemmata of Constantine the Great, the prototypical emblem of male political-religious power. Its inscription, which calls on the power of the Cross on behalf of “king and queen Tamar,” is emblematic of Tamar’s staunch and gender-blurring refusal to surrender the throne to her many male advisers and enemies (and even her two husbands). Throughout her rule, she was mepeta-mepe, the sole genitor of the Georgian royal line and the sole primary source of Georgian power. Her cross calls to mind and draws upon the power which God, the King of Kings, had bestowed on her (as Rayfield tells us, she very likely arranged her own coronation, in which she had God give her the crown in lieu of the nobility); the inscription solidifies this understanding of her enkolpion as a representation of her kingly power.

For millennia, jewelry has been a defining aspect of wealth. Royalty, nobility, merchants, and more have held and worn trinkets made of materials ranging from wood to platinum as symbols of wealth, religion, or dedication. Though these items may (typically) lack any kind of practical use, there’s no doubt that they carry considerable meaning and can impart  much information about the past.

Even today, jewelry carries much religious meaning. Many individuals today carry steel,  silver, or gold crosses as accessories and/or homages to their faith. Eleven centuries ago, the situation was no different. In particular, plenty of Byzantine jewelry was produced with religious inscriptions and icons, and many religious figures and laypeople would carry these artifacts. Enamels and gems would imbue pieces with an extensive array of colors, and gold and antique coins would make them even more grandiose. Often, pieces such as crosses were worn not only for aesthetics but also for divine  protection. Many pieces of jewelry often incorporated multiple aspects of the Greek Orthodox church; a silver cross may also carry a biblical inscription, for example.

The significance of True Cross relics: Why do we care about religious Byzantine jewelry?

Georgia has an ancient history of worship of the True Cross, dating all the way back to its early conversion in 330. So-called True Cross reliquaries are objects that are usually emblematic of the Cross of Golgotha – the cross of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ – because they claim to contain actual remnants of the wood of this cross. Georgian worship of the True Cross is evident in architectural design and decorations of many Georgian churches, such as in the erecting of high stone-crosses, the dedication of churches to the True Cross, and representations of the True Cross in paintings and reliefs in the early medieval period.

In a more personal sense, however, cross imagery could take the form of pectoral crosses, many containing relics of the True Cross. King Tamar’s cross is a bejeweled example of such a relic, covered in precious stones – rectangular emeralds, round rubies, and white pear-shaped pearls adorn the cros, and a black inscription on a gold background occupies the back side of the cross: “True Cross, the force of Cross… be an intercessor and protector for king and queen Tamar,” read the words written in an ancient Georgian script known as asomtavruli. These words emphasize the protective nature thought to be inherent in True Cross relics; wearing them was thought to evidence their owners’ veneration of Christ and therefore their own spiritual power. 

King Tamar’s cross is a prime example of an enkolpion, which  is essentially an object adorned with Christian imagery that is worn around the neck. Usually, the piece was an elaborate display of faith, as well as wealth, that carried both personal and interpersonal social meaning. Both the general production and specific complexity of enkolpia increased in the eleventh century, as personal piety became more valued in Byzantine culture. People like Queen Tamar were able to show off their devotion to God and the Christian faith, as well as their wealth and social status, by commissioning and donning more and more elaborate enkolpia. Because an enkolpion such as King Tamar’s cross was probably worn under clothing, always touching the body of the wearer, as opposed to a piece of decorative jewelry, it was considered the most intimate of Byzantine devotional objects. In addition to providing both physical and spiritual protection, enkolpia were also used to provide constant focus for prayers, and were often employed in rituals to plead for help or solace from the Christian God. Interpersonally, enkolpia held significance as tokens of affection and goodwill gifted to friends, benefactors, and political allies. In this way, an enkolpion like King Tamar’s cross might have symbolized Tamar’s own personal piety and devotion to the True Cross, as well as a relationship with someone who had an interest in seeing her protected in her faith.

Enameling: a Beautiful Byzantine Technique

When we look at precisely how jewelry was made in Tamar’s Georgian Golden Age, it’s important to note that each culture may have had many different methods of producing these pieces. When we look at Tamar’s Cross, for example, we see that it’s a product of a technique called enameling.  This was an incredibly skilled and lengthy process that became a signature of Byzantine, and, more specifically, Georgian, art of this era.

To create an enameled work, the artist would begin with finely ground glass powders of different colors. These powders would later be fired to produce the various colors present on the surface of the piece. A plate would then be selected; something to solder the gold and the glass onto. Oftentimes, this plate would be made of gold, but other metals have also been seen. The artist would then take small bands of gold and bend them, placing them on the plate to create the outline of the work to be colored in. Keep in mind the tiny scale of this operation - oftentimes, the diameter of a face was only ⅛ of an inch, so the precision required was immense. Lastly, these small gold bands would be soldered together; the method in which this was done is debated, but may have included wax, small beads of gold, and borax. Lastly, the aforementioned glass powders would be put in the appropriate cavities and refired, resulting in the final work of art.

In fact, enameled pieces were considered so rare and beautiful that they were often given as gifts to other nobles. Over time, these pieces became a symbol of Georgia’s impressive wealth; while the nation was struggling to maintain independence from external forces including Turkey and various forces from Persian lands, there were many Lartin Christians  in Western Europe taking note of the impressive artifacts they were producing. Tamar’s Cross is not the only influential example of enameling that remains from the Georgian Golden Age. The Khakhuli triptych is one of the largest examples of enameling the world, and contains various scenes including empresses being crowned by the Virgin Mary, Saints such as John the Baptist, and many other scenes from biblical and religious history, much like stained glass at some gothic churches.

At the end of the day, Georgian jewelry was one of the many ways that the medieval Georgian empire made their mark on the world. With gorgeous pieces such as Tamar’s Cross, it’s easy to see why.

Works Cited

Amiranashvili, Shalva. Medieval Georgian Enamels of Russia. Harry N. Abrams, 1964.

Gagarin, Michael. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome. Oxford, 2010.

Kostis, Kriszta. Mothers of the Empire: Empresses Zoe and Theodora on a Byzantine Medallion Cycle. 2012.

Nina Chichinadze, "The True Cross Reliquaries of Medieval Georgia," Studies in Iconography 20 (1999): 27-49.

Ivan Drpić, "The Enkolpion: Object, Agency, Self," Gesta 57/2 (2018): 197-224.

Rayfield, Donald. Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia. Reaktion Books, 2012.