
- •Preface
- •Acknowledgements
- •Introduction
- •Russian Imperial Archaeology (pre-1917)
- •Soviet Archaeology (1917–1991)
- •Marxist-Leninist Ideology
- •Intellectual Climate under Stalin
- •Post–World War II
- •‘Swings and Roundabouts’
- •Archaeology in the Caucasus since PERESTROIKA (1991–present)
- •PROBLEMS IN THE STUDY OF CAUCASIAN ARCHAEOLOGY
- •1 The Land and Its Languages
- •GEOGRAPHY AND RESOURCES
- •Physical Geography
- •Mineral Resources
- •VEGETATION AND CLIMATE
- •GEOMORPHOLOGY
- •THE LANGUAGES OF THE CAUCASUS AND DNA
- •HOMININ ARRIVALS IN THE LOWER PALAEOLITHIC
- •Characteristics of the Earliest Settlers
- •Lake Sites, Caves, and Scatters
- •Technological Trends
- •Acheulean Hand Axe Technology
- •Diet
- •Matuzka Cave and Mezmaiskaya Cave – Mousterian Sites
- •The Southern Caucasus
- •Ortvale Klde
- •Djruchula Klde
- •Other sites
- •The Demise of the Neanderthals and the End of the Middle Palaeolithic
- •NOVEL TECHNOLOGY AND NEW ARRIVALS: THE UPPER PALAEOLITHIC (35,000–10,000 BC?)
- •ROCK ART AND RITUAL
- •CONCLUSION
- •INTRODUCTION
- •THE FIRST FARMERS
- •A PRE-POTTERY NEOLITHIC?
- •Western Georgia
- •POTTERY NEOLITHIC: THE CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN CAUCASUS
- •Houses and Settlements
- •The Kura Corridor
- •The Ararat Plain
- •The Nakhichevan Region, Mil Plain, and the Mugan Steppes
- •Ditches
- •Burial and Human Body Representations
- •Materiality and Social Relations
- •Ceramic Vessels
- •Chipped and Ground Stone
- •Bone and Antler
- •Metals, Metallurgy and Other Crafts
- •THE CENTRAL AND NORTHERN CAUCASUS
- •CONTACT AND EXCHANGE: OBSIDIAN
- •Patterns of Procurement
- •CONCLUSION
- •The Pre-Maikop Horizon (ca. 4500–3800 BC)
- •The Maikop Culture
- •Distribution and Main Characteristics
- •The Chronology of the Maikop Culture
- •Villages and Households
- •Barrows and Burials
- •The Inequality of Maikop Society
- •Death as a Performance and the Persistence of Memory
- •The Crafts
- •THE SOUTHERN CAUCASUS
- •Ceramics and Metalwork
- •Houses and Settlements
- •The Treatment of the Dead
- •The Sioni Tradition (ca. 4800/4600–3200 BC)
- •Settlements and Subsistence
- •Sioni Cultural Tradition
- •Chipped Stone Tools and Other Technologies
- •CONCLUSIONS
- •BORDERS AND FRONTIERS
- •Georgia
- •Armenia
- •Azerbaijan
- •Eastern Anatolia
- •Iran
- •Amuq Plain and the Levantine Coastal Region
- •Cyprus
- •Early Settlements: Houses, Hearths, and Pits
- •Later Settlements: Diversity in Plan and Construction
- •Freestanding Wattle-and-Daub Structures
- •Villages of Circular Structures
- •Stone and Mud-brick Rectangular Houses
- •Terraced Settlements
- •Semi-Subterranean Structures
- •Burial customs
- •Sacred Spaces
- •Structures
- •Hearths
- •Early Ceramics
- •Monochrome Ware
- •Enduring Chaff-Face Wares
- •Burnished Wares
- •LATE CERAMICS
- •The Northern (Shida Kartli) Tradition
- •The Central (Tsalka) Tradition
- •The Southern (Armenian) Tradition
- •MINING FOR METAL AND ORE
- •STONE AND BONE TOOLS AND METALWORK
- •Trace Element Analyses
- •SALT AND SALT MINING
- •THE PROCESS OF MIGRATION
- •The Mobile and the Settled – The Economy of the Kura-Araxes
- •Animal Husbandry
- •Agricultural Practices
- •CONCLUSION
- •FUNERARY CUSTOMS AND BURIAL GOODS
- •MONUMENTALISM AND ITS MEANING IN THE WESTERN CAUCASUS
- •CHRONOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS
- •THE NATURE OF THE EVIDENCE
- •THE SOUTHERN CAUCASUS
- •EARLY BRONZE AGE IV/MIDDLE BRONZE AGE I (2500–2000 BC)
- •Sachkhere: A Bridging Site
- •Martkopi and Early Trialeti Barrows
- •Bedeni Barrows
- •Ananauri Barrow 3
- •Bedeni Barrows
- •Other Bedeni Barrows
- •Bedeni Settlements
- •Berikldeebi Village
- •Berikldeebi Pits
- •Other Bedeni Villages
- •Crafts and Technology
- •Ceramics
- •Woodworking
- •Flaked stone
- •Sacred Spaces
- •The Economic Subsistence
- •The Trialeti Complex (The Developed Stage)
- •Categorisation
- •Mound Types
- •Burial Customs and Tomb Architecture
- •Ritual Roads
- •Human Skeletal Material
- •The Zurtaketi Barrows
- •The Meskheti Barrows
- •The Atsquri Barrow
- •Ephemeral Settlements
- •Gold and Silver, Stone, and Clay
- •Silver Goblets: The Narratives
- •Silver Goblets: Interpretations
- •More Metal Containers
- •Gold Work
- •Tools and Weapons
- •Burial Ceramics
- •Settlement Ceramics
- •The Brili Cemetery
- •WAGONS AND CARTS
- •Origins and Distribution
- •The Caucasian Evidence
- •Late Bronze Age Vehicles
- •Burials and Animal Remains
- •THE MIDDLE BRONZE AGE III (CA. 1700–1450 BC)
- •The Karmirberd (Tazakend) Horizon
- •Sevan-Uzerlik Horizon
- •The Kizyl Vank Horizon
- •Apsheron Peninsula
- •THE NORTHERN CAUCASUS
- •The North Caucasian Culture
- •Catacomb Tombs
- •Stone Cist Tombs
- •Wooden Graves
- •CONCLUSIONS
- •THE CAUCASUS FROM 1500 TO 800 BC
- •Fortresses
- •Settlements
- •Burial Customs
- •Metalwork
- •Ceramics
- •Sacred Spaces
- •Menhirs
- •SAMTAVRO AND SHIDA KARTLI
- •Burial Types
- •Settlements
- •THE TALISH TRADITION
- •CONCLUSION
- •KOBAN AND COLCHIAN: ONE OR TWO TRADITIONS?
- •KOBAN: ITS PERIODISATION AND CONNECTIONS
- •SETTLEMENTS
- •Symmetrical and Linear Structures
- •TOMB TYPES AND BURIAL GROUNDS
- •THE KOBAN BURIAL GROUND
- •COSTUMES AND RANK
- •WARRIOR SYMBOLS
- •TLI AND THE CENTRAL REGION
- •WHY METALS MATTERED
- •KOBAN METALWORK
- •Jewellery and Costume Accessories
- •METAL VESSELS
- •CERAMICS
- •CONCLUSION
- •10 A World Apart: The Colchian Culture
- •SETTLEMENTS, DITCHES, AND CANALS
- •Pichori
- •HOARDS AND THE DESTRUCTION OF WEALTH
- •CERAMIC PRODUCTION
- •Tin in the Caucasus?
- •The Rise of Iron
- •Copper-Smelting through Iron Production
- •CONCLUSION
- •11 The Grand Challenges for the Archaeology of the Caucasus
- •References
- •Index
Samtavro and Shida Kartli |
417 |
SAMTAVRO AND SHIDA KARTLI
A few words must be said about the site of Samtavro and the surrounding region of Shida Kartli, given that some studies isolate it as a separate early Iron Age ‘culture’. While I do not subscribe to this view, the salient features are worth noting. Samtavro is located on the northern fringe of Mtskheta, a town positioned at a confluence, where the fast flowing blue waters of the Aragvi River meet the more placid murky swell of the Kura.The ancient site consists of a settlement, only partially investigated, and a vast cemetery harbouring no less than 4,400 tombs. To judge from the positions of known burials, the cemetery covers approximately 20 ha. Samtavro is the larger of two ancient cemeteries in Mtskheta, the other being Armaziskhevi, where the élite of late Roman and Antique society and their funerary gifts were buried.65 Samtavro attracted the attention of antiquarians more than a century ago, and has continued to be investigated ever since. Four major archaeological expeditions have been carried out at Samtavro; the most significant for the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age was M. M. Ivashenko and Sandro Kalandadze’s expedition, which conducted its investigations during the period 1938–61.66 The earliest burial at Samtavro,Tomb 243, can be dated to the second millennium BC, to the barrow period, but the site was most utilised during the Late Bronze and Iron Ages (ca. 1600–300 BC), and then during the late Roman and early medieval periods (ca.AD 100–580).
Burial Types
We are better served on the Late Bronze Age burials at Samtavro than the Iron Age ones, which have yet to be studied systematically. During the Late Bronze Age, the deceased at Samtavro were placed in a crouched position in a rectangular earthen grave, defined at the head and feet by a pair of stone slabs. Planks of wood or tree trunks, covered with a layer of earth or stone, sealed the tomb. A circle of stone placed around the tomb often marked the place of burial. In the Iron Age, stone slabs replaced wooden planks as the roofing material. Single burials are the most common in both periods, with males laid on their right side and females on their left. Cenotaphs, double burials (male
65Apakidze et al. 1958.
66The expeditions are best referred to as Samtavro I–IV: Samtavro I comprises the Freidrich Bayern campaigns (1871–8), carried out under the auspices of the Austrian Archaeological Institute, and those of Ernest Chantre, who followed Bayern in 1879; Samtavro II, M. M. Ivashenko and Sandro Kalandadze’s expedition (1938–61); Samtavro III, the Mtskheta Institute investigations (1976–86, 2000, 2002) led by Andrea Apakhidze; Samtavro IV, the joint Georgian National Museum and University of Melbourne campaign (2008–10). For full references to the Samtavro campaigns, see Sagona et al. 2010. See also Abramishvili 2003 for the Late Bronze Age-Early Iron Age transition, and Sadradze 1997 for the Bronze Age.
418 From Fortresses to Fragmentation
and female), and collective burials are rare.The tomb assemblages at Samtavro do not reveal any wealth differentiation. Grave goods comprised metal tools and weapons, jewellery and ceramics.There does, however, appear to be gender differentiation.Tombs with male skeletons invariably had weapons and also remnants of the funerary feast, which consisted of bones of domestic animals (cattle, sheep, goats and pigs), as well as those of wild game (deer and wild pigs). Tortoise shells were also discovered in some graves. Female tombs, on the other hand, had mostly jewellery.
Treligorebi, another large cemetery on the outskirts of modern Tbilisi, is located to the south of Samtavro in a strategic position where the Kura River meanders, emerging from the mountains onto the plains of the central south Caucasus. Treligorebi is an extensive site, stretching about 1.5 km along an elevated ridge overlooking the Kura River. Communities in the area buried their dead there for about a millennium, from the tail end of the Middle Bronze Age Trialeti barrow culture onwards. Then came a change in burial customs. At the end of the fourteenth, or early thirteenth century, rectangular pit graves lined with stone slabs were used. About 100 of these burials have been excavated and some are distinguished by the high quality of grave goods – well-crafted ceramics, bronze and iron weapons, bronze belts, and objects made of faience and semi-precious stones. According to Rostom Abramishvili, the Treligorebi tombs belong to the so-called Samtavro culture.
Around the end of the eighth century BC, a totally different burial tradition was ushered in at Treligorebi and throughout much of Georgia.This new practice is best represented by two rich cremation burials. The architecture of both tombs comprised a wooden mortuary chamber with a fl at roof. One tomb, the smaller one, covered an area of 42 m2.Although it had been robbed in antiquity, the excavator found, amongst other items, a bull-shaped ceramic vessel, a bowl carved from alabaster with a handle in the form of a sheep’s head, and gold beads.The larger chamber had walls 4 m high and covered an area of 70 m2. Its assemblage includes 100 zoomorphic rhyta – mainly sheep, though bulls are well represented too – made from well-levigated grey-black clay. Both types had plump, almost spherical bodies supported by short thick legs set firmly on the ground. Sheep are sometimes decorated with vertical fluting, probably representing fleece, whereas bulls had grooved patterns of oblique lines. Another distinctive vessel is a black ceramic container, acutely biconical in shape and decorated all over with rows of hatched triangles, either upright or pendant from a line; for added contrast the geometric pattern is filled with a white paste. Noteworthy bronze objects include a statuette on a pedestal, and standards with attachments in the form of horse heads and other creatures. No less significant are fourteen wood-decorated horse harnesses. Large numbers of carnelian and faience beads, and bronze and iron objects were also recovered.