page_title: Ushguli church of the Mother of God
section_title: Layout
hierarchical_section_title: Ushguli church of the Mother of God / Layout
caption_attribution_description: ქართული: ღვთისმშობლის ეკლესია „ლამარია“ This is a photo of a monument in Georgia identified by the ID 3093
context_page_description: The Ushguli church of the Mother of God, popularly known as the Lamaria church of Ushguli, is a medieval Georgian Orthodox church in the highland northwestern Georgian province of Upper Svaneti, now part of the Mestia Municipality, Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti region. It is a simple hall church, with a projecting apse and an ambulatory. The interior contains two layers of medieval frescoes, in a state of deterioration. The church is inscribed on the list of the Immovable Cultural Monuments of National Significance of Georgia.
context_section_description: Lamaria is a hall church, with a prominently projecting triangular apse and a relatively large ambulatory enveloping the church on the south and west. The church is built of neatly hewn limestone blocks. The ambulatory has tow doors: one is a low arched door cut in its south segment; the other, in its west portion, leads to the nave. The latter is an oblong rectangular hall which ends in a relatively shallow semicircular apse, placed three small steps above the floor level. The apse is separated from the nave by an original three-arched stone iconostasis. The vault is divided into two equal parts by a supporting arch.
  The church is sparsely lit by two windows, one each in the apse and west wall. Both the internal walls and iconostasis are covered with two layers of now faded frescoes, the earlier dated to the 10th century and the second layer painted over in the 13th century. The ambulatory was also frescoed, but only fragments of its 13th-century paintings survive. The exterior bears scarce decorative stonework. The west façade has a cross, sculpted in relief, and a slab with a four-line Georgian inscription, in a mixed khutsuri-mkhedruli script, paleographically dated to the 11th century and mentioning a female donor, named Gurandukht. The church also contains several scratched graffiti, dated from the 10th century into the 18th.
caption: Iconostasis and apse.
exif: {}