Located in a forest some five kilometers from the coast near the small town of Polis Chrysochous, the ruins were identified, in 1981, by the Georgian scholar Wachtang Djobadze of California State University on the basis of the medieval Georgian accounts.

It was not, however, until 2006 that a systematic archaeological research followed after the Georgian and Cypriot governments agreed to jointly investigate the ruins.

[2] The monastery is attested in the twelfth century, when it was renovated at the behest of Queen Tamar of Georgia (1184-1213).

It was reportedly plundered and destroyed in the sixteenth century,[1] but appears to have been in use as recently as 1935, until its final destruction by an earthquake in 1953.

Remains of Georgian paintings and inscriptions from the thirteen and fourteenth century have also survived.