Gold Treasures From The Land Of Ancient Colchian Culture In Georgia

A. Sutherland - AncientPages.com - The wealth of sophisticated, ancient goldsmithing of the Colchian Culture is enormous.

Necklace from Vani dated to 5th-4th century BC. Gold, weight: 88.968 g. The neclase is form of 56 crouching gazelles and 13 ribbed spacer beads. The animals were stamped in two halves and fused together. Ears and horns were added separately. Courtesy of the Georgian National Museum, Tbilisi.

The treasures of Colchis are associated with the famous myth, known in Greek mythology as the destination of the Argonauts' expedition to Colchis in their quest for the Golden Fleece.

The culture dates to the second half of the 3rd millennium BC and the first half of the 1st millennium BC.

Colchis, the ancient Georgian kingdom in Western Georgia, is legendary as a region abundant with gold. It has been known for centuries, and it is finally confirmed by the excavations of a series of rich ancient burials and other discoveries at the site of the town of Vani (now Imereti region).

Spectacular Gold Jewelry Of Colchis

Colchis was a highly developed culture, and so was their spectacular gold jewelry.

Necklace from Vani. Vani dated to 5th century BC. Gold, weight: 85.905 g.
The necklace is made up of thirty-one pendants in the form of charming turtles, with the eyes of the thirty small ones were done with glass inlay, and the large ones are made of gold. Their carapaces are decorated with granulation. (Found in Tomb 11) Image credit: Georgian National Museum, Tbilisi.

In the village of Sairkhe, located in western Georgia, 200 km from the Black Sea Coast, the excavations conducted between 1982 and 1990 on fifteen hills surrounding the village revealed burials and metallurgical workshops dated to the first millennium BC.

The unearthed tombs belonged to aristocratic families and contained wooden sarcophagi sealed with iron nails and protected by a massive quantity of stones.

Colchian pendants, riders and horses on wheeled platforms, Georgian National Museum. Image credit: Jonathan Cardy - CC BY-SA 3.0

In one of the coffins, archaeologists found temple rings, diadems and earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and finger rings, all made of gold. Other grave goods included less elaborate artifacts like Greek clay and silver vessels.

Here, we mention only some exquisite, ancient examples of Colchis stunning gold adornments. Left in legacy by skilled Colchian artisans, these items represent the sophisticated, ancient art of goldsmithing, and can be admired at the Vani Archaeological Museum and the State Museum of Georgia, Tbilisi.

In ancient times, Colchis was a colony of the Greek city of Miletus, which became one of the twelve Ionian city-states of Asia Minor to form the Ionian League.

Clip Headdress decoration (H-6.5 cm; H-6.5 cm), 4 th century BC from Vani, Western Georgia, The Georgian National Museum's collection

The Greek sagas connected the fabulous Colchis - the land of gold and magic - with the mythical land of Aja.

"The legend of the heroic quest of Argonauts is one of our civilization's oldest and most widely known myths, and the Golden Fleece is probably the most enigmatic phenomenon. For more than 2000 years already, an enormous volume of scientific research and pieces of art has been dedicated to this legend, with little to no truly reliable information found." 1

"…The topic has been and is still being studied by historians, archaeologists, and writers, but no one has yet studied it from a geological point of view. In the meantime, the geological argumentation may well prove crucial, as far as if the Argonauts' voyage has really happened and if the Golden Fleece is somehow linked to the gold mining technology, that might mean that the Argonauts have carried out one of the first geological expeditions in the history of our civilization…." 1

Necklace with Bird Pendants 400-350 B.C. Georgian National Museum. Photo by Amiran Kiladze. Image via georgiaabout.com)

Researchers matched the geological findings with the existing Greek and Roman written sources. They concluded that 'the voyage of Argonauts, a small team of Greek mythological heroes to the ancient kingdom of Colchis appears to have really happened.'

The expedition probably took place before the eruption of the Santorini volcano, between 1570 and 1580 BC, and it is unlikely they could carry out an expedition of this scale after the disaster.

Colchian gold diadem. Image credit: Jonathan Cardy - (with thanks to the, Georgian National Museum for allowing photography - CC BY-SA 3.0 DEED

'We assert that the primary purpose of this mission was to obtain gold and gold mining technology from those working along the river sands of the Kingdom of Colchis.

'As for the Golden Fleece phenomenon, according to our research, it is connected with the sheepskin (fleece) technique of gold recovering, which later on resulted in the formation of the romantic concept of the Golden Fleece that has existed in the civilized world ever since Homer's time….' 1

Written by – A. Sutherland AncientPages.com Senior Staff Writer

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