Sacred Spaces

action – or cult – associated with the divine encounter. This performance involves material culture, and its residues should, therefore, be identifiable in the archaeological record. For the archaeologist, distinguishing between an action that expresses a sentiment or idea and one that is a utilitarian and technical operation can be difficult. Ultimately, it concerns the identification of indicators of ritual that are embodied within spaces structured to accommodate the social institution of religion. These indicators include symbols, devices for the focussing of attention, markers of boundary zones between this world and the supernatural realm, images of the deity, and equipment and offerings used in the ritual.

A survey of Kura-Araxes settlements will lead to the inevitable conclusion that most sites have largely undifferentiated architecture. There is no obvious and conspicuous building type that was specifically constructed to service the needs of worshippers.144 Nor do any open spaces lend themselves to the notion of a public arena for ritual behaviour. Instead, we seem to have a situation where, for the most part, the formalised structured space of a house acted, depending on circumstances, as both a ‘sacred’ and a ‘profane’ area, without the need to embody that distinction physically. Some buildings have been tagged as communal ritual places, an interpretation that is based not on the scale or plan of the structures – most have the appearance of a house – but on the accumulation of symbols that fill their interiors. Likewise, we have evidence of a range of activities that are very telling and could be interpreted as religious and ritual in nature.

While cult appears to have been home-based in the majority of Kura-Araxes settlements, it could be argued that a few buildings served as public areas for religion. House 1 at Kvatskhelebi (Level C), approximating a circle about 6 m in diameter, is one such building. Like the other houses, it had a fixed central hearth, but its most conspicuous feature was a red-painted bench that ran along the back of the room.The bench had twelve small pits lined with clay and filled with ash. On top of the bench were pot lids, fragments of a portable hearth (andiron), sickle blades, and an anthropomorphic figurine. Near the bench was the skeleton of an animal with a copper arrowhead embedded in its pelvis. Pottery containers and stone grinders were reported scattered across the floor.

Building 3, a well-proportioned mud-brick building at Godin Tepe IV, has also been interpreted as a structure where the community feasted.145 It had a platform positioned in its centre, black-painted benches along three walls, a bin filled with ash next to the entrance, and steps that led down into an adjoining room where presumably the food was prepared.

144Chubinishvili (1963) speculated that a large building at the top of the mountain on which Amiranis Gora is situated was a sanctuary, but no details are given.

145Rothman 2011: 160–7.

At Shengavit, the recently exposed building in operation M5 also has qualities that could lend themselves to a public building.146 Its internal area – 4 x 2.5 m – is relatively small, perhaps emphasising the solemn activities that were performed in it. Although it has standard Kura-Araxes fitments, collectively they are symbolic of ritual activity: a central clover-leaf-shaped hearth with a ceramic vessel carefully positioned on its edge; a bin filled with ash and burned pottery near the entrance; a raised platform behind the hearth; a saddle quern positioned on a clay basin in the corner; and a large number of ceramic containers used for cooking and display. A similar patterning was found at Pulur (Sakyol), in the Upper Euphrates, where rooms with an otherwise domestic arrangement were replete with striking symbols.147 Not enough detail is provided in the field reports, but the circular hearth platforms that accommodate a large horseshoe-shaped andiron decorated with human faces in relief is suggestive.

Collectively, there are a number of features at Tsikhiagora that are also noteworthy in this context: thirteen bell-shaped pits filled with ash in Layer A, which the excavator maintains were for ritual purposes; the large size (70 m2) of two buildings in Layer B2, facing each other and separated by a cobble pathway that leads to Building 1; a sun design (circle with rays) etched into the thick clay floor between the pole and the hearth of Building 1, whose main room is almost circular; ochre-stained ceramic containers found on the low platform that ran along the back wall of Building 1; and a cluster of two pottery vessels, a clay figurine of a bull and three flint sickle blades placed in the north-east corner of the anteroom of Building 2.

Hearths

There are other noteworthy aspects. The centrality of the hearth as a focal point of activity and attention in a house is unambiguous.148 A sturdy fixture embedded into the floor of the house, the hearth was often decorated with symbols, usually displaying human or animal elements.These qualities suggest the hearth was accorded a special significance not only as a source of fire, light, and heat, but also as a means of mediating iconographically the powers (or deities) embodied in the depictions.

There are two types of hearths. One is round in shape and sunk into the floor as a permanent fixture. It was constructed in situ in the central part of the room and was generally well built (Figure 5.7(1, 5)).The central part comprised a circular pit lined with a thick wall of clay. Around this ash pit, and generally made separately from it, was the fl at, wide kerb of the hearth, which lay over the floor; in certain instances, the kerbs were decorated. Some hearths

146Simonyan and Rothman 2015: 23–35.

147Koşay 1976.

148Sagona 1998; Pkhakadze 2000; Sagona and Sagona 2009; Balossi Restelli 2015.

252 Encounters Beyond the Caucasus

were also elevated on a low platform, which enhanced further their position as the focal point of the room.The other type of hearth is portable.Also known as andirons, they are effectively stands or mounts that either carried a ceramic vessel or steadied a container when placed beside it (Figure 5.7(2, 3, 6)).149

It would seem that Kura-Araxes religion was celebrated amongst the family and within the home. Ideas and rites held and practised by families are reflected in the character and positioning of material culture within houses. Like other aspects of this culture, there is little indication that ritual was adjusted and enlarged through either new conceptions or new needs. Instead, when families came together to worship or invoke the spirit world, they continued to practise their belief systems in the manner of their ancestors.

Without texts to guide us, it is virtually impossible to know what type of belief system prevailed. Like in contemporary cultures in Mesopotamia – and even much later cultures, such as that of the Romans – numen, power, or will, may have been seen as residing everywhere, or rather as manifesting itself everywhere by action.150 For cultures that practised animism, the numen acts, but the manner of its acting is usually undetermined. Humans are intruders in the realm of the spirit world. For them, there was a need to channel the numen to produce the requisite and favourable actions.

To accomplish this task successfully, both Mesopotamians and Romans believed they had to ‘fix’ this awe-inspiring power, to narrow its focus and action. They did so by naming individual phenomena and channelling the energy into desired ends; for example, the Romans worshipped Vesta as spirit of the hearth.Thus, the many activities engaged in by a family and the natural phenomena that enveloped their world were split into many named powers that energised the actions of the household.With naming went prayers, offerings of food and grain, milk and wine, and on occasion animal sacrifice.

This brief sketch of two belief systems that are known to us through texts simply serves as a possible model for the Kura-Araxes. Just as the Romans had Vesta, it is not unreasonable to argue, given the prominence of hearths, that the residents of Kura-Araxes households held a similar belief.At some sites such as Berikldeebi and Sos Höyük this importance is underscored by clear evidence for the sealing of hearths and their intentional superimposition. Structured and repeated deposition of objects around the hearth lends support to this idea. At Sos Höyük, for instance, a standardised horned animal figurine was often associated with a well-crafted obsidian projectile point, or a skilfully fashioned bone or antler object.There is one other possible ritual activity; namely, imbibing a hallucinatory substance or concoction such as the fly agaric mushroom.151

149Pkhakadze 2000;Smogorzewska 2004.For the interesting idea on the connection between Kura-Araxes and Hurrian as reflected through hearth usage, see Kelly-Buccellati 2004.

150Jacobsen 1976; North 2000.

151Sagona and Sagona 2009.