**6. Bert'ubani (1220s)**

The Bert'ubani monastery, a cave complex in the Gareja desert, currently in the territory of Azerbaijan, preserves T'amar's only posthumous portrait. The monastery's main church was painted in the early 1220s, right before the first Mongol invasion to Georgia. The murals were probably commissioned by the Gareja monks themselves. The fresco decoration had a royal panel on the western corner of the northern wall (Figure 5). The panel depicted the deceased Queen T'amar and her successor King Giorgi IV Lasha (1210–1223), both in prayer before an icon of the enthroned Virgin. Both Mary and Jesus bless the monarchs; T'amar is dressed in a Byzantine imperial dress (Burgundy skaramangion, bejewelled loros, a 'Georgian' pointed royal crown with elaborated pendilia, jewellery), while Giorgi Lasha, who in this context would be a fully ruling monarch, still wears a Georgian courtly costume; both of them wear Georgian pointed crowns with pendilia

and are accompanied with the inscriptions: "T'amar, King of Kings", "Giorgi, King of Kings, Their [=T'amar's] Son Lasha". The royal panel in Bert'ubani exemplifies the typical pattern that was exercised by the Georgian kings for self-fashioning: royal legitimacy was justified by joining the current monarch with his/her immediate predecessor. In Bert'ubani, the necessity for including the long-deceased Giorgi III was dropped, as T'amar's and Giorgi Lasha's right to rule was no longer challenged. Nevertheless, T'amar is still regendered here more than a decade after her death—her title and costume are still masculine. The royal panel's remaining fragments were detached and since 1967 are conserved in the State Museum of Fine Arts in Tbilisi, in fear that the cave would collapse (For this portrait, see: [10] (pp. 29–31), [11] (pp. 25–29), [12] (pp. 169–184)).

**Figure 5.** King Giorgi IV Lasha alongside his deceased mother Queen T'amar, fresco, 1220s, church of the Virgin at Bert'ubani monastery, Gareja desert (Archival photograph from Zaza Skhirtladze's collection).

## **7. Gelat'i (Uncertain Date)**

The southeastern chapel of the main church of Gelat'i monastery, a royal monastic foundation of T'amar's great-grandfather, King Davit' IV the Builder, contains an intriguing image of a monarch. The figure is depicted on the western half of the northern slope of the chapel vaulting showing a monarch, clad in Byzantine royal garments (a square crown with pendilia, a divitision, a skaramangion, and a loros (of uncertain shape)) praying in front of the figure of an archangel (?). On the right side of the figure, a fresco inscription in Asomt'avruli script remains, which reads "King of Kings" (the above-mentioned recurrent re-gendered title reserved for Queen T'amar), while the monarch's name is lost. The study of this image has revealed that the monarch has a large, rounded earing and a covered chin—the sign of a medieval Georgian married lady. The unusual placing of the image—in the vaulting—has also been noted. Considering the fact that the chapel was traditionally identified as the burial chamber of Queen T'amar (Gelat'i was itself a royal mausoleum), it has been proposed that the royal image there must have depicted her, thus being her unique funerary image (For this presumable portrait, see: [18] (pp. 505–525), [23] (pp. 223–256)—both with illustrations and schemes of the

fresco). The title that is witnessed here aptly fits into Queen T'amar's male re-gendering as exemplified by most of her portraits discussed hereby.

## **8. K'olagiri (1190s)**

K'olagiri was a monastic foundation of the Vardanisdzes in the valley of the river Iori near the Gareja desert. Only the church and ossuary with several chambers survive. The fresco decoration of the church, commissioned by the Vardanisdze family in the 1190s, preserves a fragmented royal panel in the northern chapel, on the northern slope of the vaulting. The scene depicts Christ blessing two royal figures in 'Georgian' crowns; however, only the tips of the crowns survive. The presumed date of the frescoes and their connection with the Vardanisdze family make it possible to assume that the panel had shown T'amar with her consort Davit' Soslani (For the K'olagiri monastery and presumed royal portraits there, see [24] (pp. 12–18), Figures 4 and 5).
