Vinogradov A.Yu., Beletsky D.V.

Key words: Abkhazia, Abkhazian kingdom, Kakheti, Tao-Klarjeti, Armenia, Byzantium, architecture, churches, Kuppelhalle, epigraphic.
The article is devoted to a little-studied monument of Abkhazian architecture, the church on cape Bambora (Aylaga-Abyku). Despite the opinion of earlier scholars, it proved to be a Kuppelhalle from the first half of the 10th c. (dated on the basis of the ktitor inscription of the Abkhazian king). The church complex was of a monasterial or palatial nature. The article also investigates the possible model for the Bambora church and the genesis of Kuppelhalle in the Caucasus and Byzantium. Despite the ideas from the time of J. Strzygowski, this architectural type goes back to Roman architecture and manifested itself as early as the turn of the 4th and 5th cc. (Marialba in Spain), spreading further to Apulia, Greece, Balkans, Asia Minor and Cyprus. The first Kuppelhalle in the Caucasus were built in Armenia in the 7th c. (Aruch). They found their way to Georgia through Tao-Klarjeti and the Abkhazian kingdom. The synthesis of Byzantine and East Georgian elements created the unique Kuppelhalle in Vachnadziani (10th c.). The church at Bambora proves to be part of the Byzantinizing architecture of the Abkhazian kingdom.