Architecture occupies a prominent place in the rich heritage of ancient Georgian culture. In Georgia, there are a huge variety of monuments - castles, temples, ruins of palaces and farm buildings.
Development of old Georgian architecture took a long time - more than two thousand years, over and above the still earlier works belonging to the early classless society.
The oldest remained examples of the building art in Georgia belong to the early classless society (V-IV millennium BC - megalithic structures, burial mounds).
The varied church architecture took a long way of development.
The oldest churches belonged to the hall-type temples. In the V century they began to build large churches - basilicas, and in the VII century - churches having Greek-cross plan. From the VIII century the central domical constructions began development in Georgian architecture, which reaches its perfection in the X-XI centuries in the construction of cathedrals (Oshki, Bagrat Temple, Mtskheta, Alaverdi).
Initially, the Byzantine style dominated in the Georgian church architecture. At the same time the original Georgian church architecture and fresco painting gave rise in X-XIV centuries.
Fortresses and massive fortifications belong to the early medieval period (IV-X centuries). In the later Middle Ages they mainly built rather small scale feudal castles and fortresses.