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of reconstruction. It comprised three sites, with the ‘Citadel Area’, termed Udabno I.The site yielded two basic types of structures: sturdy buildings constructed with field stones in the citadel area (the so-called sanctuary), and pit dwellings sunken into the ground and strengthened along the walls with stone. Excavations and geophysics have detected about 100 houses aligned lengthwise and arranged in three or four parallel lines stretching across 450 m. These semi-subterranean dwellings were found east of the citadel and at Udabno II and III. Fire swept through these dwellings before the site was fully built, but the citadel area remained unaffected. Burnt debris sealed floor levels enabling the identification of the various activity areas – living, cooking, storage and work.
Ceramics from Udabno and Tqisbolo Gora are similar to a certain extent to pieces from the tombs (Figures 8.17–8.18).There are high-shouldered narrow necked jars, pots with rounded bellies and outward fl aring rims, handled cups and tankards, tall conical cups, and low wide bowls. Surfaces are smoothed, or given a perfunctory polish. Ornamentation is typical for the period. Designs are none too carefully incised on the surface, or applied with a burnishing tool to form basic geometric patterns.
Sacred Spaces
Three shrines exposed at Gegharot provide the clearest insight into Late Bronze Age cult, the performance of religious activity.55 Each was a small enclosed space with similar fitments and arrangement.At the rear of the room lay a large semi-circular basin of beaten clay, elevated on an earthen platform. A stone stela was placed at the back of the basin. In the West Terrace shrine, the most complex of the three, were many in situ pottery vessels and censers scattered across the floor. One censer (or brazier) was elaborately decorated, comprising a rounded top perforated with vent holes that is attached to a tall, splayed stand. From the West Citadel shrine came a series of grinding stones and a curious clay object, found in the basin. Narrow with high sides and tabular in transverse section, it has been referred to as a brazier (a manghal), but the openings at both ends might also suggest that its purpose was for the passage of air, and that it was possibly a flue.
The East Citadel shrine had similar accoutrements, and was also used to store and process wheat and drink wine. Further evidence reinforces the cultic nature of the shrines: schematic human figurines; incense stands; an abundance of knucklebones (astragali) of cattle, sheep, and goats; and smooth and rounded pebbles of various colours. This package of features in a confined space has led the excavators to maintain that the shrines were specifically devoted to divination – astragalomancy (divination using knucklebones), lithomancy
55 Smith and Leon 2014; Badalyan et al. 2014: 169–86.
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Figure 8.17. Pottery: (1–4, 6–8, 9) from Udabno; (5, 7) from Tqisbolo Gora (after Bertram 2008; Goehring 2008).
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Figure 8.18. Pottery from Udabno (after Bertram 2008).
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(divination by stones), and aleuromancy (divination with flour) – used to affirm the sovereignty and power of the new institutions.56
Although Smith and Leon draw pertinent parallels with the use of stones in Eurasian shamanic traditions, it is equally possible that the magic of the stones was not so much inherent in their material and shape, but in their colours – black, dark grey, white, green, and red. Colours are deeply symbolic elements with a long history, and they played fundamental roles in magic in the ancient Near East.57 Colour symbolism is well documented in Mesopotamia, as is the magic of coloured stones (and dyed wool).Mesopotamians had five core colour terms – four are discrete shades (black, white, red-brown, and yellow-green), while the fifth conveys the concept of polychromy.58 These terms agree well with the colours of the individual Gegharot stones and the range of colours overall. In addition to the colours themselves, the Mesopotamians valued luminosity, which they thought reflected the radiance of the divinity.59 It is tantalising to think, then, that given the sporadic evidence for cultural connections between Armenia and Mesopotamia, some of the beliefs surrounding colour and stones may have permeated into the southern Caucasus.
A very different kind of sacred space and ritual behaviour is found in Kakhetia. Shilda is a large, oval enclosure bounded by a stone wall that is broken by a causeway on the north-eastern side. Two rectangular stone features fl ank either side of the causeway.60 The main wall is relatively thick, with large field stones defining its edges and the cavity in between filled with rubble. In the centre of the enclosure is a semi-circular feature built with two nested rows of stones.At the southern tip of this feature, the community placed a large brown clay pot and filled it with bronze metalwork. Another vessel was situated at the southern tip of the enclosure and also filled with metalwork, along with a few stone and vitreous beads. Between the semi-circular feature and the southern enclosure wall were three pits, each replete with earthen wares and some bronze objects. No less than 3,457 items were intentionally, and presumably ceremonially, buried at Shilda. Pottery containers, metal moulds and their casts, and bronze figurines are the most common items.The anthropomorphic figurines are noteworthy. Cast using the lost-wax method, they are stylised and rather wiry representations. Despite their diminutive size, an attempt has been made to depict features such as garments, belts, jewellery, and weapons. Personal adornments, buckles, and weapons (daggers, spearheads, axes, and projectile points) found in the pits, though fewer in number, are striking for their technical qualities and level of decoration (Figure 8.6(2–3)).
56Smith and Leon 2014: 556.
57For the seminal work on colour theory, see Berlin and Kay 1969; Hardin and Maffi 1997. On early colour symbolism of red, see Hovers et al. 2003.
58Landsberger 1967.
59Winter 2002.
60Maisuradze and Inanishvili 2006.
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Meligele I is a similar site. Here we have a circular area surrounded by large stones and a ditch 2m wide and 60 cm deep.61 At the centre was a thick layer of ash covered with charred animal bones, mostly of sheep. More than 8,600 objects were found at Meligele I, a good number of them in pits, between 3.0 and 3.5 m deep.The pits were deliberately filled with ash and various objects, including clay vessels and carefully placed stones. They also held carnelian beads, obsidian arrowheads, bronze objects such as rings and fibulae, and stamp seals with a swastika design. Meligele II is similar in construction – a round area, 80 m in diameter, surrounded by a massive stone wall 10 m wide and preserved to a height of 1 m. Within the circle at Meligele II were another three circles defined by stones, which were terraced down a slope.At the interstices of these circles were heavily burnt stones and many objects, including bronze and iron weapons.
Melaani, the third sanctuary in the central south Caucasus, also yielded numerous objects – 1,000 ceramic containers, more than 230 metal weapons, horse harnesses, agricultural tools, bronze belt fragments, and four male statuettes. One of these statuettes, perhaps representing either a warrior or a deity, is naked (Figure 8.6(3)), with short, outstretched arms and well-articulated hands. In the right hand the figure holds a cup.The head is striking, though disproportionately large. It is ovoid with a fl at face and detailed features – a pronounced nose, beady eyes below strong ridges and a slit for a mouth. On the top of the head is a knob, representing either headgear or a hairdo.Around the neck is a wide band, almost resembling a neck brace.The figure is barechested, and wears an oblique strap over the shoulder, from which hangs a dagger.
Here attention must be drawn to the hoard found in a large ceramic container at Gamdlistskaro, in the Kaspi district of Georgia (Shida Kartli). The items include bronze ingots, hoes, sickles, axes, weapons, bracelets, and belt buckles, which reflect both eastern and western Georgian influence and can be dated approximately to the ninth to seventh centuries BC. By far the most interesting item is a unique bronze item showing a scene with people and animals around a canopied structure (Figure 8.19). The object consists of a fl at base (12 x 8 cm) with rolled up edges onto which the figures are attached. Olga Brileva notes that this is the northernmost and largest of four similar items, two of which were found in Urartian fortresses and another of which was a chance find in Armenia.62 Each reflects a similar scene – movement of eleven horned animals, probably sheep, in a clockwise direction around an open structure. Some have suggested a dog is also shown.There are also three human figures and a few fixtures that might represent hearths. Each
61Pitskhelauri 1973: 112–21; 1979: 50–3.
62Brileva 2011.
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Figure 8.19. Gamdlistskaro, bronze plate showing a scene with sheep, humans and a canopied structure (after Brileva 2011; photograph A. Sagona).