The Middle Bronze Age III (CA. 1700–1450 BC)

examples of these ox-hide offerings are those from Alaca Höyük, whose tombs most likely also contained carts.158

Related to ox-hide offerings are the later funerary rites involving horses. Their skulls and hoofs, as well as figurines carved out of bone, have been found in fourth millennium BC deposits across the steppes.159 The quantity, context, and pattern of evidence point to the crucial, if not sacred, role of the horse amongst these prehistoric communities. Moreover, it appears to have been an enduring tradition. The evocative description in Herodotus (4.71–72) of the funeral of Scythian kings, which has been used often as a point of comparison with the archaeological evidence, is worth quoting:

... and fifty of the finest horses; they open and clean out their [horses’] bellies and stuff them with chaff before they sew them up again.Then they fix half the felloe of a wheel on two posts with the ends uppermost, and the other half on another pair of posts, and so they go on fixing many more; having done that they drive thick stakes lengthwise into the horses’ bodies as far as the necks and rest them on wooden supports so that the forequarters of the horses are supported under the shoulders and their hindquarters under the bellies and the fore and hind legs in the air. (4.72, trans. Carter 1962)

Beyond Herodotus, horse sacrifices in which the skin was hung up on a pole after the flesh was eaten, continued up to recent times amongst certain communities of the Altai and Lake Baikal.160 In the belief systems of the Mongol Buryat from Siberia, for instance, shamans metaphorically travelled to heaven on a horse, symbolically represented during annual ceremonies by a skinned horse, which was raised towards the sky on a pole.161 Whether the late prehistoric funerary rites from the Caucasus involved shamanic practices remains to be seen.

THE MIDDLE BRONZE AGE III (CA. 1700–1450BC)

Around 1700 BC, southern Caucasia began to fragment into regional territories characterised by a series of distinct ceramic horizons that overlap in time, but whose chronological parameters or significance are far from clear. There are four ceramic horizons: Karmirberd (Tazakend); Sevan-Uzerlik 2; KizylVank; and Trialeti-Vanadzor III.These horizons have been most precisely articulated in Armenia, though they are also found in Nakhichevan, eastern Anatolia and north-west Iran (Figure 7.25(B)).162 The reason for this territoriality and cultural segmentation is unclear, though an escalation in political tensions may be part of the reason.

158Orthmann 1967; Sagona and Zimansky 2009: 216.

159Anthony and Brown 2003.

160Piggott 1962.

161Chadwick 1942: 75–6.

162Kushnareva 1983; 1997: 114–49; Özfirat 2001, 2008; Smith et al. 2009: 66–8.

The Karmirberd (Tazakend) Horizon

This tradition is contained within the north Armenian highlands, especially the foothills in the Ararat Plain, and is defined largely, but not exclusively, by a bold painted pottery assemblage (Figure 7.26(1–7)). Known as the Karmirberd culture (formerly Tazakend), it came to light in the late 1800s through investigations at the cemetery near the village of Tazakend, not far from the fort of Karmirberd, located within the environs of Yerevan.163 Since then, similar pottery has been found at many sites in the Araxes Valley west of Lake Sevan, on the Shirak Plain and on the slopes of Mt Aragats.

Most of the evidence derives from large cemeteries, chief amongst them Verin-Naver, Arich, Elar, Kamo (Nor-Bayazet), and Lchashen, augmented by a large quantity of chance finds from a scatter of locations (Figure 7.1).164 Karmirberd ceramics have a red fabric and are wheel made.Their predominant forms are jars with rounded bodies and short cylindrical necks, squat pots, deep wide-mouthed bowls, and cups.They are painted with motifs, executed in black paint or occasionally in bichrome (black and red), which differ markedly from the designs that ornament Trialeti painted wares. Karimberd potters were fond of metopes, juxtaposed in friezes across the upper body and filled with net patterns, nested zigzags, ‘butterfly’ designs, and chequered patterns amongst other designs. Occasionally a fringe of volutes hangs from the lowest frieze.

These vessels comprised the main grave goods, sometimes the only inventory, in burials that are consistently individual inhumations. Men were placed on their right sides, women on their left, in a flexed position with head pointing north. Before interment, the individual in Barrow 9 at Verin-Naver was wrapped in textile and then covered with clay mortar.165 Tomb architecture conformed to a uniform plan as well: a rectangular grave-pit (averaging about 1.8 x 0.7 x 1.0 m), dug into the earth or hewn out of tufa and aligned along the north–south axis.The pit was roofed with large slabs of tufa and then sealed under a small mound of stone and earth (cromlechs).

Although the painted ceramics are the distinguishing feature of this archaeological culture, they were also accompanied in certain tombs by black polished and coarse kitchen wares. Rarely, the inventory also featured bronze metalwork (daggers and ornaments), stone artefacts, beads, and shells. Black polished vessels are similar in shape to the painted wares and they are ornamented in two ways. Based on typological analysis of grave assemblages, earlier wares are incised with patterns such as pendant triangles, whereas later wares were decorated with punctate designs, produced with a comb or roulette. These latter

163Kushnareva 1960.

164Simonian 1983, 1984; Kushnareva 1997: 114–28.

165Simonian 1984.

Figure 7.26. (1–7) Karmirberd (Tazakend) pottery; (8–14) Sevan-Uzerlik pottery; (15–21) KizylVank pottery (after Badalyan et al. 2009).