**9. Conclusions**

Queen T'amar's imagery adheres to conspicuously royal traditions in medieval Georgia; however, it also relies on apparent clothing details (costumes, sometimes schematic) from the Byzantine repertoire, including purple (see [25], "purple"). This imagery can also be characterised as a distinct group of portraits that employed a sophisticated visual language to pursue dynastic legitimation—a purpose that was crucial for T'amar's rule. Her portraits reveal the coherent functions of monumental royal images in medieval Georgia: these were intended to be used as visual means to manifest authority and power. Moreover, the fact that the majority of these portraits were not ordered by the royal family directly (excluding the luxurious dynastic portraits at Nat'lismtsemeli, Figure 2), but by other high-ranking aristocrats, reveals different dynamics that the royal imagery could have exercised within the complicated relationship between the crown and aristocracy. Displaying legitimizing imagery of the ruling Queen may have been instrumental for asserting the nobility's allegiance to the crown, thus revealing their support of T'amar's lineage. Furthermore, T'amar's royal panels manifest the evolution within her imagery, while her power and position strengthened in the kingdom. If at the beginning of her reign she could not have been depicted without the legitimising figure of her late father, by the end of her life, her father's portrait would have only become a mere remainder of her ancestry. This pattern was finally dropped by T'amar's heir Giorgi Lasha, whose right to rule was no more challenged. T'amar's imagery also witnesses changes within courtly ceremonial preferences: while reserving the quasi-Byzantine male imperial costume for her depictions—as a sign of re-gendering—her predecessors' Byzantine crown was dropped in favour of a Seljuk crown [26]. Even though the origins and reasons for this crown appearing in the 1190s still have not been satisfactorily examined, it most probably derived from the insignia of the neighbouring Seljuk states. At the same time, some of the monarch's traditional insignia— namely the sword, which was definitely used at T'amar's coronation, was abandoned in her official imagery, as it was definitely unacceptable for women to carry weapons in publicly displayed images, even while governing as an absolute monarch. As a whole, the visual language employed for T'amar's imagery reveals flexibility that was exercised at the Georgian court for the plainly monumental construction of the ruler's authority. Lastly, it should also be noted that the gender-sensitive type of the dynastic royal imagery, adapted for Queen T'amar, was unique and never again followed by followed by subsequent Georgian monarchs from the Bagrationi dynasty.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Acknowledgments:** The author would like to thank Antony Eastmond, Zaza Skhirtladze, and Neli Chakvetadze for their support in preparation of this entry.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.
