Cultures in Contact From Mesopotamia to the Mediterranean in the Second Millennium B.C. Edited by Joan Aruz, Sarah Graff, and Yelena Rakic 2013 New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art and New Haven: Yale University Press Karen S. Rubinson economy emerged. Burials under large Where they were made and whether they from the sites of Carchemish and Zincirli, in mounds ap peared, containing rich inventories are local in either place are not known. The present-day southeastern Turkey. Although including tin bronzes together with arsenical two vessels clearly demonstrate intercon- these were the only comparisons the author ones, and large wooden wagons. As Philip L. nectedness of some sort, but clarifying the illustrated, Kuftin mentioned others from Kohl has noted, some of these burial mounds interrelationships requires larger data sets. Anatolia, including Cappadocian cylinder covered almost 3 hectares, an area larger than And even with these data, the sociocultural seals.12 Investigating Kuftin’s suggestions, my Actual Imports or most Kura-Araxes villages.4 The impetus for factors that drive the interactions on both research has demonstrated that the local these changes has yet to be fully explained, macro- and local levels must be explained. Anatolian style seals from Kültepe (Kanesh) and the chronological relationships among Within the framework of this overview, share highly specific iconographic elements Just Ideas? Investigations the various cultural strands —Kura-Araxes, what follows is a close examination of three with the Trialeti culture silver goblets. I Early Kurgan, and even the Trialeti culture — silver objects: two goblets, one excavated from have argued elsewhere that such clusters of in Anatolia and the remain contested.5 the Great Kurgan at Karashamb, in modern iconographic details tell the histories of non- The so-called flourishing stage of Trialeti Armenia, the other from Kurgan 5 at Trialeti, literate cultures. Despite broader similarities culture began near the end of the third in modern Georgia, and a silver bucket from with images from Mesopotamia, Syria, and Caucasus millennium b.c. The strong social differen- Kurgan 17 at Trialeti (figs. 1 – 3).11 These elsewhere in the ancient Near East, the mul- tiation; rich mound burials; and fugitive objects all display imagery associated with the tiplicity of detailed parallels to Anatolian settlements, indicating a mobile population, ancient Near East that was new at this time in style seals points to an Anatolian source for recall the Early Kurgan group.6 New prac- the South Caucasus. Where were the objects the imagery on the goblets.13 The South Caucasus lies far beyond the tices included cremation burial, the creation made? What are the relationships among Certainly the images originated outside principal geographic foci of the “Beyond of ritual roads to the mounds, and the them? What might the objects tell us about the South Caucasus, but the goblets them- Babylon” exhibition, at what is sometimes appearance of painted pottery; arsenical the cultural contexts in which they were selves were probably manufactured within conceived as the boundary between Europe bronzes disappeared.7 What these practices found, and what might these cultural contexts the Trialeti cultural sphere.14 While the and Asia. Although conceptually distant, indicate — the introduction of new popula- tell us about the objects? icon ography itself was new to the area, it was partly because it was a region without writ- tions from outside, the transformation of The two goblets are similar in shape and presented within local traditions of composi- ing until relatively late, the area today com- local customs, the shifting and / or intensify- share angular rosette ornaments at the base. tion and subject matter. As the Kura-Araxes prising Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia ing of external relations for political or The Karashamb goblet (fig. 1a, b) is more artistic tradition included both two- and has had archaeologically well-documented (if social reasons, or something else — remains complex in composition and iconography, three-dimensional representations of humans sometimes explanatorily thorny) connections to be fully understood. Based on materials with five registers of figural imagery, com- and animals, their appearance was not new with the ancient Near East since at least the recovered from excavations, in this phase pared with the two on the Trialeti example in the South Caucasus in the Trialeti cul- Neolithic period.1 It is the ancient Near East- there was an increase in imported objects (fig. 2a, b). Both designs contain human ture.15 Animals were sometimes depicted in ern connections in the Trialeti /Vanadzor among the grave goods. Likewise, more figures wearing similar garments and shoes. rows on ceramic vessels;16 they could also be culture of the Middle Bronze Age, beginning goods display what we might call “inter- However, details of the treatment of the presented as discrete elements on ceramics near the end of the third millennium b.c. connectedness,” sharing, to a greater or figures differ. For example, the Karashamb and metalwork.17 Like the earlier occur- according to most chronologies, and extend- lesser degree, features of archaeological figures are hairless, while the Trialeti fig- rences, most of the animals on the Trialeti ing to about the second quarter of the second materials found beyond the South Cauca- ures have hair on their heads and beards. and Karashamb goblets are in rows. The millennium b.c., that concern us here.2 sus, especially in the ancient Near East.8 The puffy figures of the Karashamb goblet appearance of the cast gold lion from Tsnori A brief outline of regional cultural devel- Scholars, myself included, have employed contrast with the flatter, more patterned suggests that three-dimensional representa- opments during the third millennium b.c. these “interconnected” grave goods to try Trialeti ones. There are technical differ- tions of animals continued into the time of highlights some of the distinctive charac- to date the Trialeti burials more precisely ences as well (see Appendix, p. 22). But the Early Kurgan culture.18 Additionally, the teristics of the Trialeti culture.3 The Early than the broad ranges generally accepted; despite these differences, the two goblets lion is decorated with rows of raised dots Bronze Age Kura-Araxes, or Early Trans- this endeavor remains a work in progress.9 share the same principal scene: a large indi- bounded by raised lines, a decorative pattern caucasian, culture was characterized by a Precisely why and how ancient Near vidual holding a goblet sits before a table echoed on a gold pin from Bedeni,19 where settled, nonhierarchical, agropastoral society Eastern and other exotic objects and ideas with legs ending in animal hooves. The fig- rows of small circles are bounded by raised located in small villages. Arsenical copper / reached the Trialeti culture area are open ure is flanked by animals, and approached hatched lines. A pin with similar decoration bronze metallurgy was widespread, and dis- questions. And which objects are exotic, by walking figures also holding goblets. was excavated in Trialeti Kurgan 22.20 tinctive black handmade ceramics, often with rather than just local and rare, is often When he first published the Trialeti exca- Thus, on these two goblets of the Trialeti red interiors, were characteristic. Toward the impossible to determine, as in the case of vations, Boris A. Kuftin suggested that the culture, new kinds of figural imagery were end of the third millennium b.c., a highly a cauldron from Trialeti that is identical walking figures on the Trialeti goblet resem- incorporated into existing artistic traditions. stratified, apparently trans humant pastoral to one from Shaft Grave 4 at Mycenae.10 bled the much later figures on rock reliefs For example, in the application of these new 12 13 Fig. 1a, b. Silver goblet. Karashamb, Great Kurgan. Middle Bronze Age. History Museum of Armenia, Yerevan 2867-1 14 Cultures in Contact Actual Imports or Just Ideas? Investigations in Anatolia and the Caucasus 15 Fig. 2a, b. Silver goblet. Trialeti, Kurgan 5. Middle Bronze Age. Georgian National Museum, Tbilisi s9-63:348 16 Cultures in Contact Actual Imports or Just Ideas? Investigations in Anatolia and the Caucasus 17 Fig. 3. Watercolor of silver bucket. Trialeti, Kurgan 17. Middle Bronze Age. Georgian National Museum, Tbilisi 9-63:974 Fig. 7. Cylinder seal impression on a clay tablet. Kültepe. Karum Kanesh II, ca. 1950 –1836 b.c. Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara d / k 33 Fig. 6. Detail of bucket (fig. 3) images to the goblets, the maker may have butterfly- or barrel-shaped, to the vessel retained the already familiar composition of itself — were found at the site.23 Other simi- rows of animals. In addition, the boundary lar objects occur in both contexts and require lines for the scenes may be inspired by the further investigation.24 These findings lead preexisting practice of bounding ornamen- me to ask: Could it be that the bucket and tal patterns, although, as N. O. Dzhaparidze cauldron were imported from Kültepe or has noted, the figures on the goblets stand another Anatolian site, along with whatever on ground lines for the first time in Geor- carried the borrowed imagery that appears gian art, a practice often seen in ancient on the goblets? Near Eastern art of this period and earlier.21 While the interpretation of the cauldron Thus, it may be that the bands dividing the remains challenging and calls for scientific rows on the goblets are part of that new investigation, it seems possible to demon- representational practice. Also new in the strate that the bucket (fig. 3), because of its art of the Trialeti culture at this time is figural imagery, is an exotic work in the imagery presented as a narrative, with the Trialeti culture assemblage. First, there are introduction of the elements of time and stylistic similarities between the bucket and trajectory, features already well established local Anatolian style seals.25 A striking ele- in the art of the ancient Near East.