Sacred Spaces

At Zhinvali, in the Dusheti region, an artificial terrace cut into a steep slope overlooking the Aragvi River provides us with a tantalising glimpse of a ‘sacred space’, or sanctuary.63 Although badly eroded, it is possible to discern its basic features; namely, a narrow area about 20 x 2.5 m that ran along the slope, reinforced along its front and back edges with a row of stones. On the terrace was a horseshoe-shaped platform constructed of clay and paved with fl at stones on the top; a low border of clay defined its edges. Prominently displayed on top of the platform was a large, 60-cm-high clay sculpture of a stylised face with a relief pattern, comprising a pair of large spiral designs (eyes), an ‘omega’ motif above the now broken nose, and a series of curved lines to represent the mouth (Figure 7.14(1, 2, 4)). The stylised face design is a well-known Kura-Araxes motif, and it is a prominent feature on the large jars from Ananauri Barrow 3 and at Badaani (Figure 7.14(8)).64

Pottery and a single radiocarbon reading that has provided a median date of 2130 cal BC to 68.2 per cent probability places the sanctuary in the Bedeni period.65 Ceramics are for the most part wide-mouthed pots, often with a pair of loop or ledge handles set at the neck (Figure 7.14(3,5–7)).Certain decorative elements reflect the transition between the Kura-Araxes and Bedeni periods: a dimple on the top of a loop handle and incised bands of hatched triangles recalled former tastes, whereas the triangles pendant to the shoulder were in line with current fashions. Oblique fingernail impressions across the shoulder of coarse ware, never found within Bedeni burial assemblages, signal household wares, similar to those recovered at settlement sites such Berikldeebi. In fact, the Zhinvali ceramics are no match for the funerary gifts in terms of quality of manufacture. Obsidian arrowheads with a concave base confirm the Bedeni attribution, whereas flint, sickle blades, and bronze awls suggest that whatever activities were performed, they were most likely associated with day-to-day tasks. Six pits of a later date, cut into the terrace, are filled with a mixture of Trialeti pottery fragments and animal bones.

The Economic Subsistence

In the absence of any rigorous scientific studies of animal and plant remains, and with only fleeting glimpses of village settlements, it has been assumed that the communities who built the third millennium barrows were primarily pastoralists.66 Builders of burial monuments, embracing a certain degree of mobility in their lifestyle, who roamed the plains and plateaus of the central south

63Gogochuri 2008.

64Sagona 1984.

65(TB–289) 3670 ± 70 BP.

66Kushnareva 1997: 230.

Figure 7.14. (1–2, 4) Zhinvali Sanctuary; (3, 5–7) pottery from Zhinvali sanctuary (after Gogochuri 2008); (8) pottery from Ananauri Barrow 3 (after Makharadze and Murvanidze 2014a).

Caucasus with their herds is an enduring picture.We are now starting to realise that this picture is only partly true. There is no question that the emphasis on sedentary village life that was so much part of the previous Kura-Araxes complex vanished, but it is also true that the economies of the Martkopi and Bedeni periods are far more diversified than we once imagined.

For purposes of comparison, the Kura-Araxes would be described as a minimal risk economy – a mixed agro-pastoral economy based primarily on the husbandry of sheep/goats and some cattle (depending on the site and region) and the cultivation of cereal agriculture, especially hexaploid free threshing wheat and two-row hulled barley.67 Other products were limited, or possibly are as yet undetected.The Martkopi and Bedeni periods, on the other hand, show a much more adventurous approach to maintaining an economy, with flexibility in resource management.

Around 2400–2300 BC, the Bedeni Plateau was covered with forests of thermophilic deciduous species such as lime, chestnut, hornbeam, oak, and zelkova, which were nurtured by the warm and humid climate. In the Trialeti region, mixed forests comprising lime, oak, and hornbeam flourished between 2600 and 2400 BC, and extended up the mountain slopes to 2,289 m asl.68 Presently, lime, chestnut, and zelkova cannot grow in the Trialeti region, owing to cooler climatic conditions; only beech forest thrives. This favourable environment together with the fertile volcanic soils of the Bedeni Plateau also created favourable conditions for the development of farming and horticulture. Our limited evidence for subsistence derives from both pollen and macro-remains collected from Bedeni barrows nos. 2, 5, and 10.69 We have been able to learn from the charred remains in woven baskets that the community grew wheat (Triticum) and millet (Panicum).The wheat and barley remains collected in mid- third-millennium levels at the Armenian sites of Aparan-III,Tsaghkasar-1, and Gegharot further support the idea of cereal agriculture.70 Agricultural activity is perhaps most clearly expressed by the well-preserved threshing board from Tomb 94 at Tsaghvli in central Georgia assigned to the very end of the subsequent Middle Bronze Age II period (Figure 7.15).71 Ruderal plants such as Polygonum aviculare, Centaurea, Carduus, Papaver, and Rumex form another category. They grow in disturbed soils associated with crops, or near human habitats and along pathways, and are also well represented in many samples from the Bedeni barrows.

67I would like to thank Catherine Longford for this information.

68Kvavadze 2006; Kvavadze et al. 2007a.

69Kvavadze et al. 2015.

70Hovsepyan 2010, 2015.

71Ramishvili 2008.Threshing boards are found in burials across southern Caucasia from the mid-second millennium BC to the sixth century. In Georgia alone they have been reported in eleven tombs, mostly in Shida and Kvemo Kartli (Murvanidze 2010).