ბრინჯაოს საკინძი ზემო იმერეთის ტერიტორიიდან

Abstract

An intriguing bronze pin shaped like a double blade halberd resembling an axe is housed the Ch’iatura Local History Museum. It was discovered accidentally in 1970 in the village of Itkhvisi. The pin is 20 cm long. Its 16.5 cm long pin-rod is crowned with a 4.5 cm long and 5cm wide top. One half of the shaft is adorned with incisions. The transition point between the terminal and the shaft is markedly thickened and pierced by a transverse hole approximately 1 cm in diameter. A pair of circular perforations at the center of the terminal gives the impression that the upper section may once have borne clearly defined figurative elements.
The Ch’iatura pin’s form and specific details suggest close parallels with double-bladed halberd-shaped bronze pendant-amulets discovered in Kvemo (Lower) Kartli (Ts’ints’q’aro),  which B. Kuftin dates to the Early Iron Age. A similar object, dated to the 7^th-6^th centuries BC, was found at the Eli-Baba cemetery in southern Georgia. Further analogies, particularly in terms of shape, can be observed in artifacts from Ach’ara – specifically clothing pins unearthed at the Choloki settlement (according to the shape of a mould) and a barrow in Makhvilauri.
There are also noteworthy distant parallels with Greek-Macedonian artefacts – namely, triple-stepped double-axe-shaped pendants and buttons found in the cemetery of Vergina. Notably, all of these were recovered from female burials and are interpreted as items of personal adornment. They are dated to the 10^th-9^th centuries BC.
The absence of a clear archaeological context for the bronze pin complicates efforts to determine its precise chronology. Nevertheless, we propose that the Ch’iatura pin and the double-edged halberd-like pendants known from other regions of Georgia should be examined within a unified conceptual framework. These artefacts likely belong to a shared cultural horizon and can be tentatively dated to the transitional period between the end of the second millennium BC and the beginning of the first millennium BC. We conditionally associate their origin with the Aegean cultural sphere. This era was marked by the establishment of close contacts between western Georgia and several regions of the Mediterranean. Evidence of these interactions includes beads made from ceramic, bronze, and other materials. Numerous finds from both lowland and highland Colchian sites – particularly from Early Iron Age and Classical-period contexts, such as the Brili burial ground – further attest to these cultural exchanges.