Among the relics, the most venerated is a black portrait of the Mother of God, painted by the evangelist St, Luke, with the Virgin's milk! ' The most ancient is an image of the Saviour Icnown by the name of Joanni, and probably 800 years old. Another image, that of Atzhour, brought from Atzhour twelve miles northeast of Ahal-tzykhe, was produced by the spontaneous impression of the features of the Holy Virgin, who herself gave it to St. Andrew upon his departure to spread Christianity in Geoi^ia; ■whatever the precise date of that event, nothing is known of the history of this image until the year 14S6, when it became the spoil of Jacoub king of Persia, There is also the picture of the Virgin of Byshwynta (Pytzounda), circa 1 568; of the Virgin of Ghelaty, fifteenth century, and of the Virgin of Khakhoul, which was ornamented by the great Queen Thamar, in thanksgiving for a victory over the forces of the Kaliph in 1203, A tradition thus accounts for the three great gems which adorn the brow of this Virgin.
' All black Chrisis or Virgins in Roman Calholic churches are ittribuled lo St. Lake, who a the proleclor of painlers. Among ihi; more remarkable is the Madonna of l.oreto.
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Thamar had commanded that she should be instantly informed when a pauper applied at the palace for relief, and whatever her occupation at the moment, she made it a practice to attend immediately to the wants of the needy applicant. One day, whilst placing the crown on her head preparatory to a State ceremony, the arrival of a mendicant was annpunced, but contrary to custom the queen desired that the suppliant should wait, and by the time she had completed her attire the man was gone. Feeling the circumstance to be a reproach to her vanity, she caused three of the finest gems on her diadem to be removed, sealed up in a box, and thrown into the Kour in front of her palace at Tifiis, Some time after this event, when Thamar happened to be at Dzegwy, 27 miles from her capital, a fisherman chanced to recover the identical box, which he found in his net; it was taken to the q.ieen, who at once recc^nised it, and in remembrance of tlic miracle ordained that the three precious stones should be placed on the brow of the Virgin.'
In the mortuary chapel lie buiicd several sovereigns, their graves being distinguished by massive slabs, of which one only, believed to cover the sepulchre of David ' the Restorer,' bears an inscription at all legible; it is to this effect; —
I LOVE THIS SPOT— HERE I WILL DWELL: IT IS MV RESTING PLACE.*
An iron frame with cross plates, in this sanctuary, is said to have been one of the gates of Derbent carried off by the same King David; but M. Brosset is of opinion that it is a part of the gate of Gandja, now Eiyzavctopol, brought away in 1138 by Dmitri I„ son and successor to Divid, whose remains are also supposed to
' Urosset, Viiy. Arthh.. Ropp, xi. p, lo, ' This is my reel for ever: here will I divcll; for 1 hove desired it.
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be in the same chapel. Doubts are entertained whether Queen Thamar was interred here, some authors believing that she was carried to Vardsy; but Wakhoucht, in recording her death, distinctly states that tlie body of the queen having been taken and deposited for some days at Mtzkhetha, was finally laid at Gclath amongst the tombs of the great kings, her ancestors.'
In front of the grand entrance to the church are some ruins ovcmin with magnificent ivy peculiar to the Caucasus, the leaves being of great size; these remains, which the monks said were ' of the Areopagus,' are in all probability those of a refectory. From the windows is obtained an extensive view of the ' red water ' valley and great mountain range.
At a short distance from this monastery stood the Sokhaster nunnery, suppressed at a recent period owing to its undesirable proximity and now going to decay; and among the cliffs at the back of and above the church, are numerous small hermitages hollowed out of the rock, but we did not scale the heights in search of them.
Ghelaty was for centuries the favourite burial-place of the Bagratidcs or Bagrations who claim descent from David, and occupied the throne of Georgia in one unbroken line from the sixth century to the year 1800, notwithstanding the Byzantine, Turkish, and Persian invasions, Moses Chorenensis, the chronicler of the fifth century, dedicated his work to a Bagratide in these words: ' Believe not those adulators who tell you that you are a descendant of Haik, for you are descended from Sambat, a contemporary of Nebuchadnezzar.'
Owing to discrepancies in the Armenian and Geot^ian chronicles, difficulty has been experienced in compiling the genealogy * BtihscI, Hist, dcta Ciorgit, i. p. 477.