About Nek’resi Inscriptions

Abstract

There exist two mutually exclusive opinions about the origin of the Georgian alphabet in scholarly literature. Some scientists rely on the old Georgian historical tradition and believe that the Georgian alphabet was created in the 4^th-3^rd centuries BCE, or even earlier, while others suggest that the Georgian alphabet was created after the conversion of the royal family of Georgia (Kingdom of Kartli, Iberia) to Christianity. This opinion is supported by the fact that ancient Georgian inscriptions discovered in Georgia and the Holy Land date to the 5^th century CE, as well as by archaeological data: archaeological sites of the earliest period of existence of ancient Georgian states of Colchis and Iberia, which date between the 5^th century BCE and the 4^th century CE, have yielded over 50 Arameographic and much more Greek inscriptions, while not a single word written in the Georgian alphabet has been discovered.

In his works published in 2000-2004, L. Chilashvili claims that 13 out of 14 Georgian inscriptions discovered through archaeological excavations of Nek’resi and Rustavi city-sites are performed in the pre-Christian period and date to the 4^th century BCE – 4^th century CE. Twelve of these 14 inscriptions are epitaphs; eight were discovered in Nek’resi and four – in Rustavi (L. Chilashvili dates one inscription discovered in the Christian church of Nekresi [N9] by the 370s-80s).

N. Bakhtadze, the current leader of Nek’resi excavations, shares L. Chilashvili’s standpoint; however, in his monograph published in 2020, he refrains from expressing his ultimate position about the inscriptions until comprehensive archaeological excavations of the cemetery to which the inscriptions in question are related have been carried out.

In my article, I tried to show that the conclusion concerning the dating of the Nek’resi epitaphs to the pre-Christian period is based on wrong premises.

L. Chilashvili writes that the wine cellar in whose walls six tombstones with Georgian inscriptions were reused was destroyed by Persians at the end of the 5^th century along with the fortified palace of Nek’resi which, in its turn, had been built over the ruins of a grandiose Zoroastrian temple purposely destroyed by newly Christianized Georgians. The age defined by means of radiocarbon analysis of the coal taken from the ruins of the fortified palace (end of the 5^th century), according to the author, confirmed the date of destruction. In fact, the coal found in the burnt ruins is highly likely to be the remains of the wooden construction used in the structure or those of the furniture standing in the building, unless it is carbonified grains. Thus, the age defined by the radiocarbon analysis provides the date of its building, rather than its destruction. Therefore, the wine cellar was not destroyed, but built in the 5^th or the 6^th century.

It is also wrong to claim that the red-polished pottery obtained from the cultural layer covered with the debris of the wine cellar dates to the Hellenistic or the Roman periods.

The earliest samples of this type of ceramic products have been discovered in the fourth-century graves of Urbnisi, Modinakhe and Zhinvali and are common throughout Georgia in the 5^th and 6^th centuries.

Such pottery has been unearthed through archaeological excavations carried out at Shuamta Monastery, founded in the 5^th-6^th centuries, and the monastery of Elia in Dedoplistskaro, which was founded by St’epane of Khirsa, the figure of the second half of the 6^th century.

In my opinion, it is wrong to identify the big-size square structure excavated in Nek’resi as a Zoroastrian temple or to date it by the 2^nd-3^rd centuries. The ayvāns with apses open on four sides must point to the late Sassanian epoch and their only analogue known to me is the memorial palace of Herakla, which was built at the order of Abbasid Caliph Harun Ar-Rashid (776-809) in northern Syria, near the modern city of Raqqah.

Linguistic and paleographic characteristics of the inscriptions of Nek’resi and Rustavi, which L. Chilashvili refers to, are not sufficient for dating these inscriptions by the pre-Christian period: similar paleographic and linguistic characteristics are found in other Georgian inscriptions of the 5^th-6^th centuries known up to now.