Systemizing the Past : Papers in Near Eastern and Caucasian Archaeology Dedicated to Pavel S. Avetisyan on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday

Systemizing the Past takes the reader to the fascinating world of Caucasian archaeology demonstrating the essential role of the region in shaping the prehistoric cultural landscape of the Ancient Near East. It is dedicated to Pavel Avetisyan, a leading modern Armenian archaeologist with wide international recognition, whose contributions are notable for their integration of present-day theoretical approaches, application of scientific methodology, and multidisciplinary research and stand out for their scientific value, raising Armenian archaeology to an international level. The volume touches on issues of special interest to Pavel Avetisyan, among them fieldwork reports, and various problems of prehistoric archaeology, from the early farming societies of the Neolithic/Chalcolithic periods to the complex societies of the Bronze and Iron Ages. Questions regarding the chronology and periodization of Armenian and Caucasian archaeological traditions; theoretical problems concerning the formation and development of complex societies in the Armenian Highland and the Caucasus, demonstrating the features typical to regional shifts within the common Near Eastern context; as well as various topics dealing with ceramic typology, burial rites, sacred landscapes, chronology and periodization, transformation of social environments and culture sequences, palaeodemography, 'World-System' theory and its main concepts (such as borderland, marginal zone, and frontier) are also considered in the volume. Various contributions dedicated to the fundamental archaeological problems of the region gradually shift the research perspective to meta-levels of understanding the past. Systemizing the Past takes the reader to the fascinating world of Caucasian archaeology demonstrating the essential role of the region in shaping of prehistoric cultural landscape of the Ancient Near East. It is dedicated to Pavel Avetisyan, a leading modern Armenian archaeologist with wide international recognition, whose contributions are notable for their integration of present-day theoretical approaches, application of scientififi c methodology, and multidisciplinary research and stand out for their scientififi c value, raising Armenian archaeology to an international level. The volume touches on issues of special interest to Pavel Avetisyan, among them fifi eldwork reports, and various problems of prehistoric archaeology, from the early farming societies of the Neolithic/Chalcolithic periods to the complex societies of the Bronze and Iron Ages. Questions regarding the chronology and periodization of Armenian and Caucasian archaeological traditions; theoretical problems concerning the formation and development of complex societies in the Armenian Highland and the Caucasus, demonstrating the features typical to regional shifts within the common Near Eastern context; as well as various topics dealing with ceramic typology, burial rites, sacred landscapes, chronology and periodization, transformation of social environments and culture sequences, palaeodemography, ‘World-System’ theory and its main concepts (such as borderland, marginal zone, and frontier) are also considered in the volume. Various contributions dedicated to the fundamental archaeological problems of the region gradually shift the research perspective to meta-levels of understanding the past. Yervand Grekyan, PhD in History, Dr. habil. is a Leading Researcher and Research Professor at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography and the Institute of Oriental Studies, National Academy of Sciences of Armenia (NAS RA). His research focuses on the history and culture of the Armenian Highlands from the second to the fifi rst millennia BC. He is a co-founder and a vice-editor of the journal Aramazd. Arsen Bobokhyan, PhD in Archaeology, is a Director and Leading Researcher at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, NAS RA. He specializes in the Bronze and Iron Age archaeology of the Armenian Highlands and the Near East, focusing in particular on ancient cults and cultural contacts. Bobokhyan currently leads excavations on Mt. Aragats and the eastern shores of Lake Sevan in Armenia. He is a co-founder and a vice-editor of the journal Aramazd. Cover 1 Title Page 3 Copyright page 4 Contents Page 7 Foreword 9 ‘Axe-Bull’: An Iron-Age Iconic Anagram 11 Levon Abrahamian 11 Armenian Standing Stones as an Object of Archaeological Study* 16 Hayk Avetisyan, Artak Gnuni, Levon Mkrtchyan and Arsen Bobokhyan 16 Neolithization of Armenia: General Trends and Patterns of Development 32 Ruben Badalyan and Armine Harutyunyan 32 Groups of Three Deities in Middle and Neo-Assyrian Times 40 Felix Blocher 40 Water Management in Ancient Armenia: Problems and Perspectives 52 Tork Dalalyan, Roman Hovsepyan, Levon Abrahamian, Arsen Bobokhyan and Boris Gasparyan 52 The Archaeological Site of Garni, Armenia. Pre-Arsacid Archaeological Evidence and an Urartian Inscription of Argišti on a Vishap 66 Arsen Bobokhyan 66 Artur Petrosyan 66 Boris Gasparyan 66 Mirjo Salvini 66 Onofrio Gasparro 66 Roberto Dan 66 The Kurtan Belt 89 Michael Herles 89 Ruben Davtyan 89 Achaemenid Habitats in Beniamin II (Shirak, Armenia) from the End of the 6th Century BC to the End of the 4th Century BC 98 Felix Ter-Martirossov† 98 François Fichet de Clairfontaine 98 Stéphane Deschamps 98 New Findings on Urartian Rock-Cut Tomb in Mazgirt/Kaleköy Fortress* 126 Serkan Erdoğan 126 Dalarik-1: A New Lower Paleolithic Cave Site in the Republic of Armenia 137 Ani Adigyozalyan, Hayk Haydosyan and Soseh Aghaian 137 Ariel Malinsky-Buller 137 Artur Petrosyan 137 Boris Gasparyan 137 Dmitri Arakelyan 137 Ellery Frahm 137 Jennifer Sherriff 137 Makoto Arimura 137 Masha Krakovsky 137 Phil Glauberman 137 Samvel Nahapetyan 137 Teo Karampaglidis 137 The Tušpa Mound Columned Hall 152 Bülent Genç 152 Erkan Konyar 152 Climate Change and the Transition from the Early to the Middle Bronze Age in the Armenian Highland 159 Yervand Grekyan 159 A Prehistoric Aggregated Cell Structure at 2850 m asl on Mount Aragats, Armenia 172 Alessandra Gilibert 172 Arsen Bobokhyan 172 Pavol Hnila 172 Ceramic Technology at the Kura-Araxes I and II Site of Khizanaant Gora, Shida Kartli, Georgia 182 Mark Iserlis 182 Raphael Greenberg 182 Inscribed and Seal-Impressed Clay Finds from the Urartian Fortress of Çavuştepe 199 Kenan Işık 199 Rıfat Kuvanç 199 Iron Age Pottery from Metsamor. New Observations Based on Assemblage Discovered in 2019 Season 207 Mateusz Iskra 207 Tigran Zakyan 207 Urartian Priestesses, How Important They Were? Some Observations of the Iconographic Features 219 Krzysztof Jakubiak 219 Getahovit - 2 Cave in the Middle Ages 230 Irena Kalantaryan and Astghik Babajanyan 230 Shaft Hole Axes of Stone and Metal from the Checon Settlement of the Maikop-Novosvobodnaya Community* 259 Aleksandr I. Yudin 259 Sergey N. Korenevsky 259 Hatti and Išuwa: Anatolians in the Upper Euphrates Valley 269 Aram Kosyan 269 The Fortress of Aramus in the Early Iron Age 275 Hayk Avetisyan 275 Sandra Heinsch 275 Walter Kuntner 275 Woven Traces: Notes from the 2017 and 2018 Excavation Seasons at Masis Blur 304 Alan Farahani 304 Kristine Martirosyan-Olshansky 304 New Evidence from the Necropolis of Karashamb: Excavations of the Tomb no. 444 318 Varduhi Melikyan and Artak Hakhverdyan 318 Who were the Caucasian Owners of the Mitannian Cylinder Seals? 335 Goderdzi Narimanishvil and Nino Shanshashvili 335 Archaeological Prospection in the Ararat Valley – Drilling into the History of Ancient Artaxata, Armenia 347 Achim Lichtenberger 347 Cornelius Meyer 347 Mkrtich Zardaryan 347 Nikolaas Noorda 347 Torben Schreiber 347 A Middle and Late Bronze Age Settlement in Armenia: the Aggregated Cells of Arteni 370 Aurélien Creuzieux 370 Bérengère Perello, Christine Chataigner, Olivier Barge 370 Irena Kalantaryan, Karen Azatyan, Roman Hovsepyan 370 ‘Axe-Bull’ – Order of the Thunder God* 395 Armen Y. Petrosyan 395 Overlooking the River Hrazdan Valley: The Fortified Site of Tghit in the Tsaghkunyats Mountains, Kotayk Region, Armenia* 400 Artur Petrosyan 400 Boris Gasparyan 400 Onofrio Gasparro 400 Priscilla Vitolo 400 Roberto Dan 400 From Landjik to Dvin: Armenian Evidence of Decapitation from Prehistory to the Mediaeval Era 416 Daniel Thomas Potts 416 Reconstructing the Lifeways of the Kura-Araxes* 421 Mitchell S Rothman 421 Middle Bronze Age Ceramics in Macro and Micro Perspectives* 434 Karen S. Rubinson 434 Monitoring Heritage At Risk: Caucasus Heritage Watch and the Armenian Monuments of Nagorno-Karabakh 438 Adam T. Smith 438 Ian Lindsay 438 Lori Khatchadourian 438 Tigran the Great and Mithradates Eupator: Two Parallel Kings of Kings? 450 Giusto Traina 450 Modelling of Bronze and Iron Age Monuments at the Northwestern Slopes of Mount Aragats based on a Case Study of Lernakert* 456 Benik Vardanyan and Levon Mkrtchyan 456 The Early Medieval Complex of Agarak 464 Nora Yengibaryan and Lilit Ter-Minasyan 464 Women in Urartian Rituals 495 Nora Yengibaryan 495 Systemizing the Past takes the reader to the fascinating world of Caucasian archaeology demonstrating the essential role of the region in shaping the prehistoric cultural landscape of the Ancient Near East. It is dedicated to Pavel Avetisyan, a leading modern Armenian archaeologist with wide international recognition, whose contributions are notable for their integration of present-day theoretical approaches, application of scientific methodology, and multidisciplinary research and stand out for their scientific value, raising Armenian archaeology to an international level.0The volume touches on issues of special interest to Pavel Avetisyan, among them fieldwork reports, and various problems of prehistoric archaeology, from the early farming societies of the Neolithic/Chalcolithic periods to the complex societies of the Bronze and Iron Ages. Questions regarding the chronology and periodization of Armenian and Caucasian archaeological traditions; theoretical problems concerning the formation and development of complex societies in the Armenian Highland and the Caucasus, demonstrating the features typical to regional shifts within the common Near Eastern context; as well as various topics dealing with ceramic typology, burial rites, sacred landscapes, chronology and periodization, transformation of social environments and culture sequences, palaeodemography, ?World-System? theory and its main concepts (such as borderland, marginal zone, and frontier) are also considered in the volume. Various contributions dedicated to the fundamental archaeological problems of the region gradually shift the research perspective to meta-levels of understanding the past