Georgian graffiti of Nazareth and Sinai
Dating[edit]
The Georgian graffiti were found incised, together with the Greek, Syriac, Latin and Armenian letters, on plaster in the remains of an ancient shrine discovered under the mosaic pavements of a ruined Byzantine church and dated by Joan E. Taylor to the period between 340 and 427.[12][13] The Georgian finds were studied and published by the Georgian historian and linguist Zaza Aleksidze. All these artifacts are preserved at the Franciscan Museum near the Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation.[5]
Together with the Georgian Bir el Qutt inscriptions found in Judaean Desert, the graffiti inscriptions are the oldest extant Georgian inscriptions.[5] They illustrate the early pilgrimage of Georgian Christians to the Holy Land shortly after Christianization of Iberia. Further, Werner Seibt suggests that the Georgian script could have been invented in Syro-Palestine by the expatriate Georgian monks. They might have been supported in their endeavor by their high-ranking aristocratic countrymen such as Bacurius the Iberian, a Byzantine commander in Palestine.[14]