Revisiting the Georgian inscriptions on the portal of the holy sepulchre church in Jerusalem

For centuries, pilgrims carved their names on the columns flanking the southern entrance to the Holy Sepulchre Church in Jerusalem in a variety of scripts - Greek, Latin, Arabic, Armenian, Georgian, Syriac, and Slavonic. Discussing Georgian inscriptions of Holy Sepulchre Church this article places them in the proper context of Georgian pilgrimage towards the Holy Land, and identifies mentioned pilgrims on the base of manuscript evidence, especially agapae and memorial notes. The paleographic characteristics of the graffiti, and the strong influence of the Nusxuri script on the Asomtavruli, suggest that these inscriptions date to the 13th-17th centuries.