Kubachi

Kubachi, the mountain settlement of Dagestan associated with medieval Zirikhgeran, preserved a remarkable tradition of carved stone. Reliefs from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries decorated buildings with people, animals and elaborate ornament. Human figures appeared in the dress of the wider Caucasian and steppe world, while real creatures shared the stone surfaces with fantastic beasts. These carvings give the settlement's medieval artistic life an unusually vivid surviving form.

Arabic calligraphy and plant ornament also covered grave monuments and architectural details. Decorated bronze cauldrons belonged to the same broad world of skilled craftsmanship. The village's stonework continued beyond the medieval period: reliefs assigned to the fourteenth through eighteenth centuries survive in buildings and collections, some reused in the walls of houses and mosques. Alongside its reputation for armourers and metalworkers, Kubachi thus possessed workshops whose skill was expressed in the fabric of the settlement itself, from building façades to carved memorials.