Trabzon Sumela Monastery part 7 : Old photographs

The Sumela Monastery is reached by means of a steep path through the forest. Its entrance was evidently designed with security in mind and final access to the building was via a long, narrow flight of steps. A large aqueduct abutting the mountainside at the side of the steps brought water to the monastery. Old photographs reveal a structure with ten wide arches which is in extremely good condition, but it is now in ruins. As you pass through the main entrance, where there is accomodation for the doorkeeper and other rooms you descend a flight of steps into an inner courtyard. In the centre on the left is a church built on to the cave containing the sacred spring, opposite which are a number of monastery buildings laid out in a random fashion. On the left side of the courtyard is a comparatively new fountain where the waters of the sacred spring oozing from the mountainside collect. It is now half ruined and full of rubble. On the left, inside the cave, is the church-which is the oldest part of the monastery. The church juts out at right angles into the courtyard. And its walls are covered with frescos, both inside and out. However, a close examination of the frescos reveals that they are of comparatively recent origin and that beneath them are layers of much older and more valuable murals. The existence of the latter is also recorded in various sources. On the right side of the courtyard are a number of rooms forthe accommodation of guests known to have been built circa 1860, together with a library and there are a number of small chapels around the courtyard. In old photographs taken before the monastery reached its present stage of dilapidation we see that the walls of all the buildings facing the courtyard have wooden balconies and verandahs. Rice describes the fine wood-carving on some of the above. In one of the now extremely dilapidated chapels are murals considered to date from the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries. At the far end of the courtyard a narrow corridor extends above a narrow, jutting rock and  . from this point an impressive building contiguous with the cliff face extends in the other direction. This part of the complex, which is most striking when viewed from a distance, is the main monastery building where the monks once lived. Apart from the three main floors there are several rows of cellars below and a set-back storey at the top. The rows of arches and galleries underthe eaves endow the building with a stately air. This barracklike building, which is visible as a whiteness on the darker background of the cliff when viewed from afar was built in 1860 in the course of the major repairs and renewal referred to above. However, apart from its size and location the building does not possess any really noteworthy artistic or architectural features. There was once a wooden roof with wide overhanging eaves but this, together with the timber structure of the building has collapsed, leaving only four walls, in the middle of which is the vast, empty well of the building. When one looks downwards from the tower that juts from the front wall the dizzying height of its location becomes clear.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 20th, 2008 at 3:18 pm