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Photo courtesy of Veronica Kalas

The walls of the Selime Kale’ church are covered with frescoes, most of them badly deteriorated, depicting scenes from the life of the Virgin. One fresco (shown here, compare with photo of round columns and square piers) may help identify the owners of the Selime Kale complex; in this painting, the Virgin stretches out her arms to bless two men, one of whom presents her with a model of the church. Author Veronica Kalas suggests that these are depictions of two Georgian princes, David Magistros and his brother Bagrat, Duke of Dukes, who may have been encouraged by the Byzantine Empire to settle in Cappadocia and who may have built the Selime Kale.