Journal Phasis - Greek and Roman Studies

Pkhakadze, Manana

Phasis 15-16, 2012-2013 
 
Manana Pkhakadze, Raul Chagunava (Tbilisi) 
For the History of Monastery on Athos  
A well-known composition of Hieromonk George (1009-1065) – The Life of 
Our Blessed Fathers John and Euthymius represents not only a highly artistic 
piece of literary writing, but also belongs to historic monuments of 
primary significance. This piece of writing was created when Greeks were 
trying to appopriate the Georgian monastery on Mount Athos (“Iveroni”) 
(1042-1244) and did their best to achieve their goal. Therefore, according to 
the author’s idea, The Life of Our Blessed Fathers John and Euthymius should 
have become a document confirming rights of Georgians so that the evil of 
violators in the future was not forgotten.  
Certainly, the piece of writing, intended to be a document, should have 
relied upon only credible information and using the monasterial records 
containing such information and according to stories narrated by 
witnesses, Hieromonk George managed to create a rather trustworthy 
piece of writing in terms of historic truth.  
The fragment related to close relations between Roman and Georgian 
monks should be considered as an additional and new evidence of historic 
credibility of The Life. Foundation for these relations was laid after the 
Roman Leon came to Athos for pilgrimage with 6 disciples. According to 
The Life, “a monk arrived from Rome, <Leon>, brother of Beneventos 
Ducas, from a noble Roman family and famed for his virtues, that were 
acknowledged <both> in Rome and Greece.”1 Upon arrival, the Georgian 
Fathers escaped from Leon. These Georgian Fathers, founders of the 
                                                 
1  The Life of Our Blessed Fathers John and Euthymius and Their Worthy Citizenship as 
described by the Poor Hieromonk George, Georgian monks on Mount Athos: Two 
11th Century Lives of the Hegoumenoi of Iviron, translation, notes & introduction by T. 
Grdzelidze, London: Bennett & Bloom 2009, chap., 14. 
For the History of Monastery on Athos 199 
Georgian Monastery on Athos (“Iveroni”) imply: Ioane Varaz-Vache (died 
in 1006) – the first head of the monastery, Ekvtime, son of Ioane Varaz-
Vache (died in 1028) – the Great Enlightener of Georgians and the second 
head of the monastery (1005-1019), George I (died in 1029) – the third head 
of the monastery and possibly (if he had not been already died), Ioane 
former Tornike (died in 984) – a well-known commander and defeater of 
Bardas Skleros. The Georgian Fathers were so fascinated with this 
pilgrim’s “face adorned with grace”2 that they welcomed him as the 
person they had been acquainted with and offered him to stay on Athos. 
In the opinion of the Fathers, the fact that he was a foreigner should not 
have prevented them from doing so, as they had been foreigners 
themselves – “We are foreigners and you too are a foreigner.”3 
The Fathers “vigorously convinced him”4 (Leon) to live in the Geor-
gian Monastery together. The Romans living in Constantinople and other 
Byzantine towns soon became aware of this fact, “because he was a well-
known and famous man.”5 Many visited Athos “to become monks 
through him.”6 But when the large number of visitors in the short period 
of time became noticeable, the Fathers, who believed that this number 
would increase in the nearest future, advised Leon: “Holy father, since 
you have been saving so many souls, it is better to tonsure them and 
become the cause of the Vitae of their souls and to plead <on their 
account> before God.”7 The Georgians did not restrict themselves to 
advice and promised a real support to the Roman monk for such initiative. 
This is seen from their offer: “We shall purchase a place for you and 
provide all that you need,”8 i. e. that together with purchase of the place 
for monastery, the Georgian Fathers undertook to assist the Roman – “all 
that you need”, which together with money, implied the items, tools, 
utensils, food, drinks, etc. required for the church.  
“Although the holy one (Leon) found worldly anxiety and cares 
difficult”9, which were related to construction of the monastery and 
afterwards to its patronage and management, but “he did not wish to 
                                                 
2 ibid. 
3 ibid . 
4 ibid. 
5 ibid. 
6 ibid. 
7 ibid. 
8 ibid. 
9 ibid. 
Manana Pkhakadze, Raul Chagunava 200 
disobey the order <of the fathers>”10. So he initiated construction of a 
beautiful and spacious monastery, on the place undoubtedly bought by 
Georgians and as George the Hagiorite mentions, “with the help of our 
fathers, he completed the building.”11 
The monastery built with the assistance of Georgians functioned in the 
period of Hieromonk George as well, which is evidenced by the following 
source: “And today it is the only Roman monastery on the Holy Mount 
and they live a good and orderly life according to the Canons and 
Regulations of St. Benedict12 whose life is described in <the Book of> 
Dialogues.”13 After construction of the own monastery, the monastic cell 
designed for Leon after he moved to the Georgian monastery, was left to 
him, according to The Life. This is clear from the fragment of The Life 
concerning the relations of Leon and a Georgian monk, Gabriel. These two 
persons were connected by a great spiritual friendship and despite the 
language barrier, they maintained a good mutual understanding. They 
often met each other and all of their meetings were longstanding. This 
situation is described in The Life in the following manner: “Whenever 
<Leon> visited the fathers, he would stay there for days in a cell near the 
cell of Gabriel. And neither of them spoke each other’s language. At 
twilight they would go out from their cells, praying and sat proclaiming 
the words of God until the bell rang for Matins.”14 
It is absolutely possible that location of their monastic cells next to each 
other might have facilitated the friendship of representatives of two 
different nations to a certain extent. But the main reason must have been 
the fact that Gabriel the Georgian was a remarkable person, like Leon. 
George the Hagiorite mentions him in another fragment of The Life in 
relation to Ioane, former Tornike. The renowned commander, having 
                                                 
10  ibid. 
11  ibid. 
12  This should be the monastery of Amalfitans. Actes d’Iviron, p. 36. The Benedictine 
monastery on Mount Athos, according to Agostino Pertusi (in: Monasteri e monaci 
italiani all’Athos nell’Alto Medioevo, dans: Le Millénaire du Mont Athos, 963-1963. 
études et mélanges, t. 1, Chevetogne 1963, 217-25) was founded by Leon Benevent, the 
brother of the doux of Benevent Pandolfo II. He arrived to MA around 9980 with his 6 
disciples, first resided with the Georgian monks and then with their help, they 
founded their own monastery between 980-990. The first abbot was Leon, his 
successor John of Amalfi, probably one of the six disciples. Paul Lemerle, Le monde 
de Byzance: Histoire et Institutions Variorum, XXII, London 1978, 548. 
13  The Life of Our Blessed Fathers John and Euthymius and Their Worthy Citizenship, 2009, 
chap., 14. 
14  Ibid. 
For the History of Monastery on Athos 201 
participated in many fights, but already very old, “he loved to relate 
<about his military exploits>”15. To prevent “bringing spiritual damage to 
both this worthy man and his own soul,”16 Ioane Varaz-Vache advised 
him to tell these stories to Gabriel, “who never spoke of worldly things but 
only of divine and spiritual <things>”17 (Gabriel the Georgian must be the 
holy monk, who had a vision of the Holy Mother in his sleep, who helped 
him to miraculously obtain the Panagia Portaitissa in the sea).18 
The fact that Leon the Roman was a real person and built a monastery 
on Athos, adhereing to the monastic Rule of St. Benedict, is proved by the 
monograph published by E. Amand De Mendieta Mount Athos.19 Acco-
ridng to this publication, after Athanasios the Athonite built the Great 
Lavra on Athos, laying the foundation for the new stage of monasterial life 
on the Holy Mount, the believers wishing to live a monasterial life moved 
to this place from different countries. Italians were also among them (par-
ticularly, from Calabria, Amalfi and Rome), whose large number was 
mentioned by George the Hagiorite. According to Emmanuel Amand De 
Mendieta, Athanasios the Athonite showed great care in respect to const-
ruction of the Amalfi monastery (about the year 980). This monastery, 
adhering to the monastic Rule of St. Benedict, was established by Leo, 
brother of the Prince of Capua, Randulf II, who was largely assisted by 
monks of the Georgian monastery of “Iveroni”.  
It is clear that the Great Leon from The Life by Hieromonk George – “a 
monk arrived from Rome” and “brother of Beneventos Ducas”20 is the 
same person as Leo, brother of the Prince of Capua, Randulf II, according 
to Emmanuel Amand De Mendieta. The monastery “Hromthai” built by 
the Great Leon on the Holy Mount, where “monks followed the canon and 
monastic rule of St. Benedict,”21 undoubtedly implies the Monastery of 
Amalfitans built by Leo according to the monastic Rule of St. Benedict. 
The fact that “with the help of our fathers, he (Leon) completed the 
building”22, is repeated by Emmanuel Amand De Mendieta, who declares 
that Leo received a great assistance from Georgian monks of “Iveroni”. 
                                                 
15  The Life of Our Blessed Fathers John and Euthymius, chapt., 7. 
16  Ibid. 
17  Ibid. 
18  Georgica, v. 8, texts with Georgian translations, published and explanations attached 
by S. Kaukhchishvili, Tbilisi 1970, 265-266. 
19  Amand De Mendieta E., Mount Athos, Amsterdam 1972, 72. 
20  The Life of Our Blessed Fathers John and Euthymius, chapt., 14. 
21  Ibid. 
22  Ibid. 
Manana Pkhakadze, Raul Chagunava 202 
All this coincidences, in terms of narration of historic facts, once again 
prove the informational credibility of The Life by Hieromonk George. At 
the same time, this composition allows us to make small adjustments to 
some data provided by Emmanuel Amand De Mendieta, which require 
some clarification.  
Brother of Leon-Leo, Randulf II, more exactly Pandulf II (981-1014) 
ruled Benevento in 981-1014, and he became the Prince of Capua only in 
1007. As Leon came to the Holy Mount in the early 980s, Pandulf had been 
the Prince of Benevento during that time. Therefore, the true situation is 
more exactly conveyed in The Life (i. e. Leon was actually “brother of 
Beneventos Ducas” and not the Prince of Capua).  
E. Amand De Mendieta was totally right, when he mentioned that 
Athanasios the Athonite made a particular contribution to construction of 
the Monastery of Amalfitans. This outstanding person facilitated construc-
tion of several monasteries on the Mount Athos and the Roman monastery 
was not an exception. But contribution of Georgian monks to this private 
case was distinguished and rather noticeable (it was by their advice that 
the holy monk started construction of his own monastery). Apart from 
good disposition towards Leon, rather significant assistance from the part 
of Georgians was predetermined by the circumstance, that Iveroni 
possessed a lot of funds by that time (upon defeat of Sklearos, Tornike 
acquired the usurper’s loot in the form of treasure – i. e. precious stones of 
gold and silver, which according to Hieromonk George, “he received more 
than 1200 liters.”23 How efficient this assistance by Georgians was, is seen 
from the above mentioned phrases of The Life: “Holy father, since you 
have been saving so many souls, it is better to tonsure them”24 (e. i. 
Georgians advise Leon to build a monastery, where he will be able to 
carry out ordination of the Romans arriving on Athos), “we shall purchase 
a place for you and provide all that you need”25 (it is seen from here, that 
the Georgians bought the monasterial place and assisted with necessary 
items), “with the help of our fathers, he completed the building”26 (“help” 
of Georgians in “all matters” of construction means that the main 
contribution in this process was made by Georgians, but in financial form 
and possibly, in the form of labour required for construction). 
The clarifications offered by us do not confront the corresponding data 
                                                 
23  Ibid, 50. 
24  Ibid, 14. 
25  Ibid. 
26  Ibid. 
For the History of Monastery on Athos 203 
of Hieromonk George and E. Amand De Mendieta to each other, but 
supplement them from informational point of view. As it is found out, 
significance of these corresponding data is rather great and this coinci-
dence convincingly confirms the historic credibility of one more data of 
The Life and properly demonstrates the episode of really surprising 
activities of Georgian monks on Athos, describing the construction of the 
Monastery of Amalfitans and the initial stage of its functioning.  
 


English

For the History of Monastery on Athos

Scapini, Marianna

Iconographic Aspects of the Winged Demon of the "Villa dei Misteri"

Vial-Dumas, Manuel

Το Ιουστινιάνειο δίκαιο ως πλαίσιο τις ευρωπαϊκής ταυτότητας

Tchkoidze, Eka

Ο όρος “Έλληνας/Ελλάδα” στα γεωργιανά αγιολογικά κείμενα του 11ου αιώνα και η επικρατούσα ιστορική πραγματικότητα της εποχής

Caracausi, Maria

Τρεις Ευρωπαίοι ποιητές: o Γκάτσος, ο Λόρκα, ο Ρεμπώ

Ugulava, Giorgi

Die politisch-historischen Motive in Aristophanes "Batrachoi"

Mantzilas, Dimitrios

"The Behistun Inscription" and the "Res Gestae Divi Augusti"

Illiev, Dimitar

Phasis 15-16, 2012-2013 
 
Dimitar Iliev (Sofia) 
A New Opportunity 
for Regional Scholarly Partnership 
An international EpiDoc XML Workshop took place between 03. and 
07.09.2013. at the Sv. Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia. It was one of a 
series of events that include EpiDoc training and are held on several 
occasions in different institutions around the globe each year. Its target 
audience are scholars dealing with ancient epigraphy and willing to 
participate in digitization initiatives or start their own projects in this field.  
EpiDoc is a subset of TEI, and TEI is a set of rules, standards, and 
guidelines for the artificial mark-up language XML proposed by an 
international scholarly consortium. To understand the full potential of this 
tool for electronic description for philological and antiquarian purposes, 
first one needs to understand how a mark-up languages works, which was 
a part of the introductory first day of the 4-day event. The trainers, Gabriel 
Bodard and Simona Stoyanova from King's College, London, introduced 
the idea of textual tagging to an audience of 14 scholars from Bulgaria, 
Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, Georgia, and Romania. It proves that, for a 
classicist and/or an epigrapher, which was the professional profile of 
most of the trainees, the idea of a meta-language describing all the features 
of a text and its material carrier is not unfamiliar at all. XML (eXtensible 
Mark-up Language) is a set of rules, both machine - and human-readable, 
that can describe any feature of an epigraphic monument. It achieves this 
goal thanks to a set of labels, or tags, encompassing and describing any 
piece of information from or about the monument. These tags, called 
elements, can be contained within each other in a complex hierarchy and 
can also contain more specific attributes which have a usually pre-
determined range of values. 
Dimitar Iliev 438 
Using a set of elements with their attributes and values for a 
description of an object – not only an epigraphic monument but any 
object, for that matter – needs to conform to certain rules. The general 
rules for creating a well-formed document are usually the hardest for a 
beginner to get used to. This is attained through the use of special editors 
of XML code, with one of which, oXygen, the trainees got acquainted in 
the second day of the event.1 But there is more to that. On each occasion, 
the encoders may define themselves their own set of rules what should the 
hierarchy of elements and their attributes be like. But, for philological 
purposes, this work has been already done by the international 
consortium known as TEI (Text Encoding Initiative).2 The TEI guidelines, 
currently in their 5th version, contain a more than 900-pages' worth of 
elements, attributes, and values. This is a successful attempt to cover all 
the possible cases that could present themselves before the researchers 
when they need to encode a text in digital form for philological purposes. 
Of this inexhaustible hoard of solutions to very particular problems, the 
specific features applicable for epigraphic and papyrological documents 
were derived and ordered by EpiDoc.  
EpiDoc is a common effort conceived at King's College, London and 
further developed internationally to elaborate an accurate and detailed set 
of elements for the describing of ancient inscriptions or papyri.3 Its core 
was first designed for the electronic publication of Charlotte Roueché's 
epigraphic corpus Inscriptions from Aphrodisias.4 Later, the initial achieve-
ments of EpiDoc were applied and expanded by diverse initiatives such 
as: The US Epigraphy Project;5 The Vindolanda Tablets Online;6 Curse Tablets 
of Roman Britain;7 Ancient Greek and Latin Inscriptions from Upper Macedonia, 
Aegean Thrace and Achaia,8 and others. Presently, teams of scholars are 
using the EpiDoc schemas to present in digital form the inscriptional 
heritage of Roman Tripolitania, the Northern Black Sea coast, etc. Since 
2010, a team of Bulgarian epigraphers from the University of Sofia has 
                                                 
1  In the vast world of XML editing software, oXygen is considered one of the best 
solutions when it comes to philolofical work. See http://www.oxygenxml.com/. 
2  For more information about the initiative, as well as a detailed description of their tag-
set, see http://tei-c/org.  
3  The current guidelines and more information about the initiative can be found at 
http://epidoc.sf.net. 
4  http://insaph.kcl.ac.uk/iaph2007/index.html. 
5  http://usepigraphy.brown.edu/.  
6  http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/. 
7  http://curses.csad.ox.ac.uk/. 
8  http://pandektis.ekt.gr/pandektis/handle/10442/326. 
A New Opportunity for Regional Scholarly Partnership 439 
been working on an electronic database of inscriptions from ancient 
Thrace and Moesia Inferior in the framework of the Telamon Project 
whose site will be up and running in the first months of 2014. It was by the 
joint effort of the Telamon crew, led by Prof. Mirena Slavova, and the 
Digital Humanities Programme to the “Alma Mater” Centre for Excellence 
in Humanities at the University of Sofia, whose head is Assoc. Prof. 
Dimitar Birov, that the whole event was planned, organized, and funded. 
The purpose of all the EpiDoc trainings is twofold. On the one hand, it 
is a great opportunity for many researchers around the world to expand 
quickly and easily their competences in a new, fast-growing and 
fascinating interdisciplinary domain. On the other hand, all the partici-
pants in this as well as the other trainings were encouraged to start their 
own projects, simultaneously applying and enhancing the possibilities of 
EpiDoc XML. The standards developed by EpiDoc are not set once and for 
all but could be perfected with the inclusion of new monuments from new 
regions, with their own peculiarities and difficulties for the encoder. The 
Balkans and the Black Sea are one of the regions with the richest and most 
diverse epigraphic heritage left from antiquity. At the same time, the 
peculiarities of many of the monuments are shared throughout the area. 
The common local past is quite often asserted by common ethnonyms, 
religious and secular institutions, as well as sometimes common proso-
pography and onomastics. Thus, getting together to work on particular 
problems connected with the description and representation of ancient 
inscriptions in digital form was the first step in a long collaborative 
process. A process whose initial stage will be the building of a network of 
specialists from the countries of the Balkan Peninsula and the Black Sea. 
And whose final stage will hopefully be achieved with the building of a 
network of local digital epigraphic collections. 


A New Opportunity for Regional Scholarly Partnership

Tarkhnishvili, Tamar

The Council as the Form of the Governing in the Ancient World and in Georgia

Licheli, Vakhtang

Phasis 15-16, 2012-2013 
 
Vakhtang Licheli (Tbilisi) 
Ancient Colchis and Intercultural Relations 
Special interest of neighboring empires towards the countries or tribal 
alliances, existing in the Caucasus, was always determined by the 
geographical location of the region in question. At the beginning of the 
period of Greek colonization, an entity, consisting of several states with a 
rather high level of development, already existed in the southern part of 
the Caucasus. Among them, Colchis happened to be more advanced. The 
Colchian Kingdom existed in Colchis, i. e. the present-day Western 
Georgia and its adjacent territory washed by the Black Sea. In the 
Caucasian region the Kingdom of Colchis seems to be the most advanced 
state entity in the end of the 2nd millennium-beginning of the 1st 
millennium BC (Lordkipanidze, 1972). At the same time, however, it was 
the period, when two destructive powers appeared on the historical arena, 
causing disappearance of many eastern states, including the Kingdom of 
Colchis. These destructors were the Cimmerians and approximately half a 
century later – the Scythians. Ancient Greeks called the Cimmerians and 
the Scythians the peoples which occupied the territories adjacent the 
Caucasus from north, as well as southern plains of the present-day Russia. 
Under the name of the Cimmerians a heterogeneous ethnic entity is 
usually meant, including groups of people speaking the Iranian language 
as well. New groups of Iranian-speaking people began intensive influx 
from the east into the region under discussion, at the beginning of the 1st 
millennium BC.  
It should be marked that in the Transcaucasian (Western Georgia) 
material culture dated to the 7th-6th c. BC along with the local and eastern 
elements, Aegean elements are evidenced. 
To my consideration this issue might be easily resolved taking into 
account the results of the works carried out on the island of Samos during 
Ancient Colchis and Intercultural Relations 169 
the last years. In particular the archaeological context of votives the part of 
which is the Colchian statue of knight woman, there are (in accordance 
with the results of the excavation conducted under the leadership of Prof. 
H. Kyrieleis) – imported objects coming from Babylon, Phoenicia, Iran, 
Assyria, Urartu and Cyprus. On the basis of these materials, the Hera is 
considered to have the special sign (trait) in the ancient times – she is the 
goddess protecting horses and horsemen. In the light of the forgoing, the 
discovery of the Colchian statue here is truly natural – the statue, as well 
as the other things, was sacrificed to Hera by one of those travel-
lers/merchants, who happened to appear in the Colchian area. In the East, 
beyond the Colchian borders, in Caucasus-Anatolia region, there weren’t 
discovered any of the statues of Colchian knight woman; it means that we 
might consider that the appearance of this figure in the Aegean World is 
the result of communication with Colchis.  
However, in the given case, what should be explained is the thematic 
identity with the same kind of statues discovered in the continental 
Greece. In this case most important is horse women’s terracotta figurine 
from the Heraklion museum, dated back to the Late Bronze-Early Iron 
Ages. This is the earliest representation of this style, showing the way of 
genesis and spreading of horse women’s statue (from Crete to Greece and 
Cochis). But in this case we have unsolved problem of statistical 
comparison of statuettes in two different regions: Greece and Colchis.  
At the same time there are Iranian items found in the graves in Colchis: 
at first the existence of contacts with the Persian world became obvious 
due to data found in collective burials of 9th-6th c. BC (containing also 
statues of knight woman). It was attested by finds of the so-called III type 
whole-cast daggers in Colchian collective graves. Among them were three 
samples discovered at Ergeta (necropolis 1, No. 5, 7 pit-grave; No. 3, 2) 
and two samples – in Dghvaba necropolis (7th c. BC). They belong to the 
so-called ”Near Eastern-type” daggers, which finds the closest analogies 
with the Hasanlu IV daggers (Mikeladze, 1990, 57; Haerink, Overlat, 2004, 
31-70) The bronze dagger – found in South Georgia, namely, in a cenotaph 
excavated in the Mzetamze necropolis – also has connection with the 
Western Persian World. Its closest analogies are daggers attributed to the 
group 31-35 by P. Calmeyer. They are united into the artifacts, belonging 
to the Neo-Babylonian period (Moorey, 1971, 113-129). It could be said 
with confidence that this dagger was made in Luristan. Discovery of calf-
rings was also evidenced at the Mzetamze necropolis (Table 1b). This fact 
has direct and synchronous parallel at Luristan, namely at the Gul Khanan 
necropolis (burial 37, Haerink, Overlat, 1991; Haerink, Overlat, 2004, 35). It 
Vakhtang Licheli 170 
is quite possible that the fact of spreading of the so-called jugs with a 
tubular handle all over Colchis are indicating on the existence of the early 
contact; they were found at nearly all sites dated to the 7th-4th c. BC 
(Batumi castle, Pichvnari, Kokhi, Simagre, Ochamchire, Ergeta, Mtisdziri, 
Dablagomi, Kutaisi, Kulevi, Brili, etc.). Pottery of this type originally 
appeared in Western Iran. In recent years it is evidenced at Qalaichi (Cf.: 
Fine Ware, 800-600 BC). 
At the same time, next period coincides with the beginning of the most 
intensive relations between Colchis and the Greek World. Similarity of 
metal artifacts, standardization of pottery, activation of coin circulation 
and administrative division of the country give grounds to some scholars 
to conclude that Colchis of the period under discussion was a united, 
politically and economically advanced state. At the same time impact of 
the Achaemenid culture on the territory of Colchis, especially on the 
Colchian art, was very strong (samples of the goldsmith). At the same 
time, a striking difference, which existed between the littoral of Colchis 
and its inner parts, is clearly obvious: the coastal settlements were entirely 
of the Hellenic orientation, while the Achaemenid tendencies were 
scarcely felt there. The archaeological finds at the Greek and Colchian 
necropolises, dated to the 5th-4th c. BC represent the best proof of this 
statement (Kakhidze, Vickers, Tavamaishvili, 2007). The majority of the 
material found at the burial-ground under discussion is of local or Greek 
production. To rare finds belongs a kohl-tube of Iranian production 
(Barag’s Group I, dated to the second quarter of the 5th c. BC (Licheli, 2011, 
139)). Taking into consideration this archaeological background, we have 
to assume that interrelation of Colchis in the 8th-5th c. BC was oriented to 
both – Western and Eastern directions, but priority was given to the 
Western direction – to the Greek World.  
BIBLIOGRAPHY: 
›  Chkonia A., The Gold Jewelry from the Vani Site, Vani VI, Tbilisi 1981.  
› Haerink E., Overlat B., Djub-I-Ganhar and Gul Khanan Murdah Iron Age III 
Graveyards in the Aivan Plain, Acta Iranica, Encyclopedie permanante des etu-
des Iraniennes. Troisieme Serie, v. XXII; Luristan Excavation Documents, v. III, 
1991.  
› Haerink E., Overlat B., The Iron Age III Graveyards at War Kabud, Pusht-I Kuh, 
Acta Iranica, v. 42. The Luristan Excavation Documents, v. V, 2004. 
› Kakhidze A., Vickers M., Tavamaishvili G., Fieldwork Conducted at the Pichv-
nari Hellenistic Period Cemetery in 2003-2004. Greeks and Colchians on the 
East Coast of the Black Sea, Activities of the Batumi Archaeological Museum, v. 
4, Batumi 2007. 
Ancient Colchis and Intercultural Relations 171 
› Kacharava D., Kvirkvelia G., Recent Archaeological Finds on the Upper Terrace 
of the Vani Site, Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia, v. 14, no. 3-4, Brill 
2011. 
› Licheli V., Urban Development in Central Transcaucasia in Anatolian Context: 
New Data, Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia, v. 17, Brill 2011. 
› Lordkipanidze O., The Culture of the Ancient Colchis, Tbilisi 1972.  
› Lordkipanidze O., The Vani Site, Vani I, Tbilisi 1971.  
› Melikishvili G., Colchis in the 6th-4th Centuries BC, Essays from the History of 
Georgia, v. I, Tbilisi 1970.  
› Mikeladze T., Researches in the History of the Ancient Population of Colchis 
and South-Eastern Littoral of the Black Sea, Tbilisi 1974.  
› Mikeladze T., On Archaeology of Colchis, Tbilisi 1990. 
› Moorey P. R. S., Towards a Chronology for the “Lūristān Bronzes“, Iran, v. 9. 
London. British Institute of Persian Studies, 1971. 
› Nadiradze J., Sairkhe – The Ancient Town of Georgia. Templar Complex and 
Culture, Tbilisi 1990. 
 
 
 
 


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