MITANNIAN STYLE SEALS FROM TRANSCAUCASIA AS A HISTORICAL SOURCE ^*

Finds of Mitannian-style seals in the Caucasus have been known since the beginning of the century, and their number is slowly but steadily growing. To date, there are already 13 cylindrical seals with subject images related to this style, and 10 of them were obviously found on the territory of Southern Transcaucasia, south of the Kura River. ¹ B. B. Piotrovsky wrote about two more such seals, now lost, which were located in the Etchmiadzin museum ^.2 As is well known, Mitannic style seals were distributed much wider than the borders of the kingdom of Mitanni, and G. Frankfort pointed out a certain conventionality of the term "Mitannian" ³ .

Transcaucasian seals of the Mitannian style were repeatedly considered against the background of the Near Asian ones, among which they have fairly close analogies ^.4 The most complete analysis and almost complete set of Caucasian seals is given in the latest article by B. B. Piotrovsky [⁵], where the subjects presented on them were also specially analyzed. The list of Near-Asian analogies can be expanded, but this is not necessary. Without repeating all that has been said, we will note only the main points that are important for the proposed message. There is no doubt that the seals found in Transcaucasia belong to the Near-Asian type. This is evidenced both by the features of the images presented on them-subjects, composition, iconography and style-and by the technical techniques that imply a combination of a round drill and a chisel. All of them belong to the common (Common Mytannian) ⁶ style, which was widespread in Asia Minor in the XV-XIV centuries.

* The paper was prepared with the support of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research grant No. 97.06.80122.

¹ This number does not include two seals from Mingechaur that differ in specific features (see Karakhmedova A. A. Hurriti seals from Mingechaur / / Cultural relations of the peoples of Central Asia and the Caucasus. Drevnost ' i srednevedovye [Ancient and Middle Ages], Moscow, 1990) and cylinders covered with solid polylines from Artik, Pari-Geha and iLori-Berd (see Khachatryan T. S. Ancient Culture of Shirak. Yerevan, 1975. Fig. 77, 3. P. 188; Devedjyan S. G. Lori-Berd I. Results of excavations in 1969-1973 Yerevan, 1981. p. 37. Tables IX, 3), since the possibility of their local production is not excluded, although a similar motif is found on the Front Asian cylinders (see, for example, Negahhan E. O. Marlik. The Complete Excavation Report. V. II. Philadelphia, 1996. PI. 98, 480, 481).

^{Piotrovsky B. B.} 2 Supplement to the article by J. I. Gummel "Excavations to the south-west of Khanlar in 1941" / / VDI. 1992. N 4. p. 15.

^{Frankfort Н.} 3 Cylinder Seals. A Documentary Essay on the Art and Religion of the Ancient Near East. L., 1939. P. 279.

^{Schueffer С.} 4 Stratigraphie compare'e et chronologie de l' Asie Occidentale. L., 1948. P. 410. Pig. 30, /, 2;

Piotrovsky B. B. Urartian inscriptions from the excavations of Karmirblur (instead of a preface) / / Diakonov I. M. Urartian letters and documents. Moscow-L., 1963; Khachatryan T. S. Ancient culture of Shirak. Yerevan, 1975. p. 188. Fig. 77; same name. The Artik Necropolis. Catalog. Yerevan. 1979. 53, 422, 625; Jifarov G. F. Azerbaijan's relations with the countries of Western Asia in the Late Bronze and Early Iron age (based on archaeological materials). Baku, 1984, pp. 34-40. Tab. Ill; Aslanov G., Kashkay S. Cylinder Seals from the Nakhichevan District / / Dokl. IV Mezhdunar. konf. assyriologists of socialist countries. Poznan, 1989.

^Piotrovsky. 5 Supplement to the article by J. I. Hummel ... pp. 13-15. Fig. 5.

^{Porada Е.} 6 Seal Impressions of Nuzi // AASOR. 1974. XXIX. P. 12.

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B.C., and according to some experts, it was preserved until the XIII century B.C. ⁷ . According to researchers, all Transcaucasian seals are made of white paste. If they were covered with glaze, like most of the Near Asian ones, there are no traces of it, with the exception of seals or Mingechaur beads. Near-Asian analogues of Transcaucasian seals are found throughout the entire area of Mitannian-style seals and, accordingly, cannot indicate any specific source of their receipt (see Fig.).

Nevertheless, the Transcaucasian finds are of direct importance for understanding the historical and cultural situation that developed in Transcaucasia during the period of their distribution in this territory. But first of all, we need to make one small reservation. As is known, it has been repeatedly pointed out that the very concept of "Transcaucasia" has a rather late origin and is associated with the inclusion of these territories in Russia at the beginning of the XIX century. ⁸ However, although the northern and southern borders of Transcaucasia, i.e. the territory bounded on the north by the Great Caucasus Range, and on the south by the Arake River, they were never impenetrable to cultural contacts, population movements, did not pose obstacles to political formations and areas of individual archaeological cultures from both the north and the south, and a certain originality of this territory was preserved for centuries. This fully applies to the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages, when Transcaucasia, which was closely connected with the Near East, was nevertheless a very special cultural region.

The conditions of the seals found allow us to conclude that all of them were used here in a relatively limited period of time, apparently mainly coinciding with the period of their functioning in the Near East. Thus, most of the seals in Transcaucasia are found in complexes dating back to the beginning of the Late Bronze Age (seals from Artik, Lchashen, Shamiram, Metsamor, Kharab-Gilan, Khanlar, Aga - Evlar, Khasan-Zamini), when Near-Asian seals began to spread actively in Transcaucasia. The findings of the Mitannian seals served as a serious argument for determining the absolute date of this period, which is confirmed by the analysis of other materials.

It is also noteworthy that the complexes containing seals, with a few exceptions, are distinguished by a distinct cultural proximity, indicating that both the penetration and use of Mitannic seals in Transcaucasia is associated not only with a single time, but also with a certain historical and cultural phenomenon. Such a phenomenon was the elite monuments of the Lchashen type and the most striking of them-the well-known Lchashen mounds, located on the north - western coast of Lake Sevan9 . At the same time, researchers do not fully understand the nature of the cultural layer defined by the Lchashen type monuments, nor its area. Along with the definition of "type monuments", the names" Lchashen culture "and" Sevan culture " are mentioned, and their closest parallels with some monuments located on the territory of Georgia are mentioned . ¹⁰ It seems that the Lchashen type monuments represent a community that is archaeologically attested primarily in elite burials. These burials are united

-----------------------

Rice. Mitannian style seals from Transcaucasia and Near Asia:

1-13-seals found in Transcaucasia: 11-12-by B. B. Piotrovsky. Supplement to the article by J. I. Hummel. Table 13-according to T. S. Khachatryan. The ancient culture of Chirac. Fig. 77, 2 .

1-Khanlar, 2-Shakhtakhty, 3-Metsamor, 4-Shamiram, 5-Hasan-Zamini (Talysh), 6, 7, 9-Kharaba-Gilan, 8-Aga Evlar, 10-Lchashen, 11-Lori-Berd, 12, 13-Artik

14-25-prints from Near Asia: 14-by E. Porada. Introduction. Fig. 1-9; 16-19-by N. Frankfort. PI. XLL, e, j, d, c; 20- (fragment) - PI. XLII, o; 21 - by Piotrovsky. Addition... Table 6; 22 - PI. XXI, c; 15, 23, 25-according to E. O. Negahban. Marlik. V. I. III. 13. 469; III. 16, 472; III. 17. 473; 24-by Khachatryan. The ancient culture of Chirac. Fig. 77, 4.

^Eadem. 7 Introduction // Ancient Art in Seals. Essays by Pierre Amiet, Nimet Ozgoc and John Boardman. Edited and Introduced by Edith Porada. Princeton, 1980.

⁸ See more about this: Areshyan G. E. Archeologiya i istoricheskiy sintez [Archeology and historical synthesis].

^{Mnatskanyan A. O.} 9 Excavations of mounds on the coast of Lake Baikal. Sevan in 1956 (preliminary report) / / SA. 1957. N 2; ond. Ancient Bronze Age carts on the coast of Lake Baikal. Sevan / / SA. 1960. N 2; Martirosyan A. A. Armenia in the era of late Bronze and Early Iron. Yerevan, 1964. pp. 93-107 and others.

^Martirosyan. 10 Uk. op. p. 111-113; Burney Ch., Lang O. M. The Peoples of the Hills. Ancient Ararat and Caucasus. L., 1971. P. 104; Pithelauri K. N. Eastern Georgia at the end of the Bronze Age. Tbilisi, 1979. p. 95; Tbilisi. Archaeological sites. I. p. 18 et al.

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Rice.

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a combination of a number of items - features of the funeral rite and inventory. The range of such monuments is limited to the territory extending to the west, south and northwest of Lake Sevan, and its northern border runs in the area of the modern city of Stepanavan in Northwestern Armenia. In the monuments of other regions of Transcaucasia, the similarity with those of Lchashen is usually limited only to certain elements of the inventory. The findings of the overwhelming majority of Mitannian-style seals quite clearly coincide with the specified area, which confirms the validity of distinguishing this style, with the exception of seals found in the burial grounds of Talysh - Aga-Evlar and Khasan-Zamini and in the burial near the town of Khanlar in Eastern Transcaucasia. As for Talysh, its monuments always showed a clear cultural and historical originality and direct connection with the Near East, which resulted in the appearance of Mitannian seals here. Khanlar "burials with deer" occupy a special place among Transcaucasian monuments. It was the seal found in one of these burials that gave rise to the above-mentioned article by B. B. Piotrovsky. Monument explored by Ya. I. It has no analogues either in Transcaucasia or abroad. Its specific feature is the burials of deer together with people, with decorated horns and legs. In two cases, it was the deer that occupied the central place in the burials, and in one case they were placed next to a wooden funeral cart (or funeral sledge )in a position that suggests that they were harnessed to this vehicle. ¹¹ The Khanlar graves located in Eastern Transcaucasia on the Ganjachay River, a right tributary of the Kura River, are not included in the area of elite monuments of Lchashen and are quite different from them, which makes it impossible to expand the Lchashen area to the east on their basis. However, a special analysis of the Khanlar burials conducted by the author of this article allowed us to formulate a conclusion that the "burials with deer" belong to a group of people who came to Eastern Transcaucasia, to the area of the Ganjachay River, which was sparsely populated at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age, directly from the area of monuments of the Lchashen type and most likely from the Ararat Valley, where their ideological ideas asia Minor ¹² .

In the light of the above, it becomes obvious that the spread of Mitannian-style seals in Transcaucasia is directly related to the cultural phenomenon expressed by monuments of the Lchashen type. There is hardly any reason to identify the area of monuments of the Lchashen type with a separate archaeological culture, since a special similarity can be traced only at the level of elite burials and bronze metallurgy. Nevertheless, it is obvious that there are close ties within the area mentioned, which indicates the proximity of the tribes included in it, probably to some extent separating themselves from their neighbors from the east and north. It has been repeatedly noted that the formation of these bright complexes, which marked the beginning of the Late Bronze Age in Southern Transcaucasia, was associated with a clear cultural impulse from the western regions of Near Asia. Some forms of defensive and defensive weapons, details of chariots, and jewelry were cited as evidence, and there is no doubt about their Near-Asian origin13 . The appearance of seals, obviously, was part of the mainstream of Near-Asian, mostly West Asian innovations. It should be noted that although the links with the Central Asian regions can be traced in one form or another throughout the Late Bronze and Early Iron ages of Transcaucasia, the West Asian impulse is most clearly manifested in the initial Late Bronze Age, but later it significantly weakens. It is likely that during the formation of the Lchashen cultural complex, the contacts of the region covered by it with the Central Asian world became particularly intense, possibly implying partial movements of individuals or small groups of them. This does not imply recognition of the decisive role of such contacts in the development of the Lchashen complexes and, above all, metallurgy. The complex of material culture of the Southern Transcaucasia of the Late Bronze Age matured in the bowels of previous autochthonous cultures, when it was prepared

^{Gummel Ya. I.} 11 Excavations to the south-west of Khanlar in 1941 / / VDI. 1992. N 4.

^{Pogrebova M. N.} 12 "Burials with deer" from the excavations of Ya. I. Gummel and their place in the system of Transcaucasian monuments / / Hermitage readings in memory of B. B. Piotrovsky. Tez. dokl. SPb., 1998.

^Piotrovsky. 13 Urartian inscriptions from the excavations of Karmir Bloor. pp. 11-12; Martirosyan. Uk. soch. pp. 93-107; Khachatryan. The ancient culture of Shirak. p. 173 sl.; Devedjian. Uk. soch. p. 27-37.

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the flourishing of bronze metallurgy, which marked the transition to a qualitatively new historical and cultural stage.

As we have already noted, for determining the absolute chronology of monuments of the Lchashen type or the beginning of the Late Bronze Age, the finds of Mitannian-style seals in Southern Transcaucasia are of decisive importance, so the end of the XV-XIV centuries BC seems to be the most preferred date for this period. As is well known, there is now a tendency for the initial phase of the Late Bronze Age to age in Transcaucasia and, in particular, in Georgia until the middle of the XVI-beginning of the ^XIV century BC or even the second half of the XVI-XV century BC14 Without going into this issue in detail, I would just like to note that that no matter how far the transition period to the late Bronze Age can be traced, which is mainly distinguished by ceramics, the beginning of the brilliant bronze metallurgy that marks this era in Transcaucasia cannot be attributed to the time preceding the time marked to a large extent by Mitannian seals. As already noted, these seals were used in Transcaucasia for a relatively short period of time, apparently coinciding with their existence in the territory of Near Asia.

However, the significance of the Mitannian seals for the history of Transcaucasia is not limited to the above. The conditions of their use here complement the ideas about the level of economic development of the population of Southern Transcaucasia in the corresponding period. Thus, there is no doubt that the use of seals in most of their Central Asian area and in Transcaucasia was different. Their very number, which is more than modest in comparison with the finds, for example, in Nuzi, along with the practical absence of seals in the Late Bronze Age layers of settlements, indicates against the possibility of their use for their intended purpose. It is also characteristic that in the burials they were found together with beads and, obviously, in the same quality, which was noted by J. I. Gummel when describing the location of the inventory in grave 149 "burials with deer" and T. S. Khachatryan when describing the corresponding catacombs of Article ¹⁵ . It is obvious that in the Transcaucasian society there was no need for the use of seals. With the advent of the late Bronze Age, the layer of "military aristocracy" significantly increased here, as can be judged by the greatly increased number of burials with a set of weapons, although they were inferior in inventory and pomp of the rite to the elite burials mentioned above ^.16 Obviously, there were no significant changes in the development of the economy that could have led to the need to use seals. As one of the reasons for this situation, we can probably consider the fact of an increased and unjustified amount of bronze equipment from an economic point of view, which is very labor-intensive in production, which was accompanied not only by particularly rich and complex rites, but also by much more modest burials. The economy was literally burrowing into the ground. Perhaps this circumstance was also one of the reasons why there were no real state formations in Transcaucasia and, in particular, in the area of monuments of the Lchashen type in the described era.

Regardless of how the seals were used - as beads or amulets-and how the images on them were interpreted by their Transcaucasian owners, there is hardly any reason to believe that these subjects or the stylistic techniques and technical means used to reproduce them had any tangible impact on the art of the Transcaucasian population of the Late Bronze Age. The vast majority of prints remained imported items and did not enter the local culture organically. However, a hypothesis was formulated about the influence of fine art represented by images on Hurrian (Mitannian) seals on the art of Eastern Transcaucasia, in particular on the ornamentation of white-inlaid ceramics and large plaques made of antimony. ¹⁷ Despite the interesting observations of the author of this hypothesis, it seems that these phenomena are completely independent. Not to mention that as a prototype

^{Kavtaradze G.} 14 On the chronology of the Eneolithic and Bronze Age of Georgia. Tbilisi, 1983. p. 146; Ramishvili A. T. Problems of archeology of the final stages of the Late Bronze Age of inner (Shida) Kartli: Abstract of the dissertation of the Doctor of Historical Sciences. Tbilisi, 1998 (in Russian and Georgian). p. 54 sl.

^Hummel. 15 Uk. op. p. 7; Khachatryan. Ancient Culture of Chirac, p. 188.

^{Masson V. M.} 16 Drevniye tombnitsy vozhdei na Kavkaze: nekotorye aspekty sotsiologicheskoi interpretatsii [Ancient tombs of leaders in the Caucasus: Some aspects of sociological interpretation]. Kavkaz i Vostochnaya Evropa v drevnosti, Moscow, 1973; Kushnareva K. Kh. K voprosu o sotsial'noi interpretatsii nekotorykh pogrebenii Yuzhnogo Kavkaza, KSIA, 1973, 134.

^Karakhmedov. 17 Uk. op.

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One seal found outside the complex in Mingechaur, with a rather peculiar image in style, is considered. It can be argued that the ornamentation of white-inlaid ceramics, the center of which had a clear geographical reference to the area of the Ganjachay river, although it appeared, as far as we can judge, immediately as a well-established phenomenon, nevertheless has clearly traced Transcaucasian features. sources. The "suddenness" of this appearance, which led many researchers, including the author of this article, to assume the possibility of borrowing it, should rather be explained by the special cultural and historical conditions that developed in this area of Eastern Transcaucasia at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age, which contributed to the rapid formation of a new system of images composed of previously known elements., but the justification of the stated thesis is a topic of a separate work. Note only that the evolution that can be traced in the development of a fractional chronology in the ornamentation of white-inlaid ceramics is reduced to the development from a purely geometric pattern to the image of people and animals, which could hardly have taken place if the Mitannian seals were used as a prototype. The same Central Asian motifs that are captured in the ornamentation of some bronze and antimony products are not directly related to the glyptic.

Another type is the well-known golden cylinder from the Archadzor mound in Eastern Transcaucasus18, whose image is close to the images on the seals of the second Syrian group19, and the Imishli cylindrical seal 20, which appears to belong to the Middle Assyrian group21 . Both of these publications belong to somewhat later periods and correspondingly fit into a different Transcaucasian context, the analysis of which is not included in the tasks of this article.

MITANNIAN-STYLE SEALS AND THE HISTORY OF TRANSCAUCASIA

M.N. Pogrehova

By now 13 cylinder seals have been recovered in Southern Transcaucasia. Their subjects, composition and iconography are akin to those of common Mitannian seals spread over the Near East from Iran to Cyprus in the 15th-14th cc. ВС.

The paper is focused on the role of these finds in the Transcaucasian historical and cultural context. Most of the seals under investigation were found in archaeological complexes and can therefore be safely attributed to the initial stage of Late Bronze Age. The seals served as a guide for the absolute dating of that epoch in Transcaucasia.

The location of Mitannian seals in Transcaucasia shows their connections with the area of Lchashen barrows. The fact implies their penetration into Transcaucasia owing to a mighty Near Eastern impetus that marked the formation of Lchashen culture.

Although Transcaucasian seals were synchronous to the Near Eastern ones, the former were used as mere beds or amulets, which is indicative of a relative underdevelopment of Transcaucasian economy at that time. This may have been due to the mass conversion of the bronze metallurgy produce into grave goods. Thus, these time- and labour-consuming articles were literally buried and put out of circulation.

¹⁸ 1957. XXVII. Fig. 8, 2. P. 169; Jafarov G. F. Azerbaijan's relations with the countries of Western Asia. Table III, 2.

^Frankfort. 19 Op. cit. PI. XLIV, b.

^Jafarov. 20 Uk. op. Table III, 3. pp. 36, 37.

^Frankfort. 21 Op. cit. PI. XXXI, k.

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