CAUCASICA

 

The Journal of Caucasian Studies

 

VOLUME 3 1999

 

 

 

TBILISI IVANE JAVAKHISHVILI STATE UNIVERSITY

TBILISI UNIVERSITY PRESS

 

  

Editorial Board:

Rom Metreveli - Editor-in-Chief

Rismag Gordeziani - Editor

Hrant Avetisyan (Armenia)

Igrar Aliev (Azerbaijan)

Howard Aronson (USA)

Heinz Fahnrich (Germany)

Thomas Gamkrelidze (Georgia)

Luigi Magarotto (Italy)

Bernard Outtier (France)

Guram Topuria (Georgia)

Yuri Zhdanov (Russia)

Publishing Group:

Lasha Beraia

Levan Gordeziani - Head

Tamar Janashia

Lela Javakhishvili

 

 

© Tbilisi University Press, 1999

Caucasica 3, 1999

 

 

 

Contents

Acknowledgements 3

David Braund (Exeter)

Peaceful Caucasus: an ancient perspective 7

Heinz Fähnrich (Jena)

Dezessive harmonische Konsonantengruppen in den Kartwelsprachen 15

Gregor Giorgadze (Tbilisi)

Die zintuhiia-Frauen in hethitischen Keilschrifttexten 20

Людмила Грицик (Киев)

Проблема "кавказского моста" в украинской компаративистике конца XIX - начала XX вв. 28

H.C. Günther (Freiburg)

Zu Ioane Petrizis Proklosübersetzung 35

Uwe Hentschel (Leiden)

Zur Bedeutung psychologischer Forschung für die Schaffung und den Erhalt von Frieden 46

Нино Каухчишвили (Милан)

Св.Нино и роль женщины в Византии первых веков 54

Giorgi Leon Kavtaradze (Tbilisi)

The Identity of the Mysterious Statue from the Erzerum Museum 59

Elguja Khintibidze (Tbilisi)

13th-century Greek and Latin Translations of a Georgian Hagiographic Text 67

Джони Квициани (Тбилиси)

Грузино-северокавказские отношения сегодня (реальность и перспективы) 81

Guram Lortkipanidse, Guram Qipiani (Tbilisi)

Die Kampfwagen des alten Georgien 86

Luigi Magarotto (Venice)

What animal is hidden behind the term bars in Lermontov's poem Mtsyri? 93

Roin Metreveli (Tbilisi)

Les relations de la Géorgie avec la Byzance et les croisés au XII-ième siècle 102

Bernard Outtier (Paris)

Un poignard pour la paix 106

 

 

  

Caucasica 3, 1999 p. 59

 

Giorgi Leon Kavtaradze (Tbilisi)

The Problem of the Identification of the Mysterious.

Statue from the Erzerum Museum

 

On the exhibition at the Erzerum Museum (Turkey, Eastern Anatolia) the fragment of a stone statue (h - ca. 1,5; w - ca. 0,7), which seems to represent a king or ruler (figs. 1-2), attracts the attention of visitors and must have been carved of stone of the red-brown colour, though the back of the statue is pinkish.

In the opinion of the Turkish archaeologists, the statue belongs probably to the Neoassyrian period. On the other hand, in the view of German specialists, the statue of the Erzerum museum is of the Parthian type.1 The difference concerning the attribution of this statue was mainly caused by its fragmentary character: only the left half of the torso, the left arm and the part of the beard were survived (figs. 3-4).

Though the statue from Erzerum has some common elements with the Assyrian or the Parthian sculptures, it obviously belongs neither to the Assyrian nor to the Parthian art. As it seems, the problem of its attribution can be solved only on the basis of the native, East Anatolian-South Transcaucasian, data. The heavy, warm coat of the person depicted by this sculpture is in a sharp contrast with the light dresses with short sleeves of the Assyrian kings of the Neoassyrian period. But no reliable indications of its connection with the art of the Urartian or subsequent periods of the East Anatolia-South Transcaucasia area till the pre-Seljukian times were

_______________________

' G.L. Kavtaradze, Probleme der historischen Geographie Anatoliens und Transkaukasiens im ersten Jahrtausend v. Chr., Orbis Terrarum, Internationale Zeitschrift für Historische Geographie der Alten Welt, 2, 1996, 215n. 50.

 

 

 

60 Giorgi Leon Kavtaradze (Tbilisi)

found as well. Among the artistic works of the pre-Seljuk and Seljuk period only some elements characteristic of the above statue were detected.

At the same time, the identical copy made of the pink colour stone, if not the same sculpture, what seems to be most plausible, can be traced among the findings of Ani excavations (near Kars, on the shores of Arpa-çay) which took place in 1906 and were conducted by the famous linguist, Niko Marr.2

I bear in mind the stone statue of the Armenian, Bagratid, king, Gagik I (989-1020) (fig. 5), detected at the time of the excavations of the round plan church of St. Gregory - Gagikashen.

The Bagratid dynasty ruled in the northern part of Armenia from the early eight century AD; in the late ninth century the representatives of this dynasty re-established the Armenian kingdom. In the early part of the second half of the tenth century, under Ashot III, the capital was brought from Kars to Ani. If at that time Ani was an ordinary fortress on the hill, under the rule of Gagik I Ani and its kingdom had a golden age in which architecture, literature and intellectual-spiritual life had their heyday.3

The statue of Gagik I was found 4 m north of the church, the model of which king carried with his stretched out hands4 and which has been designed to imitate the mid-seventh century church at Zvartnots (near Yerevan), as already Stephan from Taron informs us (III, 47). The church was built by the Armenian king near the ravine Tsaghkotsadzor at 1000 (the modem Turkish Alaca-çay). Therefore the statue should not be dated later than the early eleventh century. The statue gave the impression that it was made from a nature.5 By the information of Stephan from Taron the church was decorated with sculptures already at the time of Gagik I (III, 47). The statue is especially remarkable for the period of transitivity from the relief to the round sculpture in Transcaucasian art.6

___________________________

2 N.Ya. Marr, Raskopki i raboty v Ani letom 1906 goda, Teksty i issledovaniya k gruzino-armianskoj filologii, tom X. St-Petersburg, 1907 (in Russian), passim.

3 P. Rohrbach, Geschichtlicher Überblick, Armenien, Beiträge zur

armenischen Landes-und Volkskunde. Rohrbach, P. (ed.). Stuttgart, 1919, 11.

4 Marr 1907, 20, fig. 15.

5 J. Strzygowski, Die Baukunst der Armenier und Europa. Ergebnisse einer vom kunsthistorischen Institute der Universität Wien 1913 durchgeführten Forschungsreise. Wien l918, 432n.2.

6 N. Aladashvili, Ob izobrazhenii ktitorov v monumentalnoj skulpture Armenii i Gruzii

 

 

The Problem of the Identification of the Mysterious Statue from the Erserum Museum 61

 

The fact that Gagik I built his church as an imitation to the St. Gregory church of the Zwartnotz which was built by the Chalkedonically minded Armenian catholikos of the seventh century, Nerses II, (and therefore it repeated the architectural details characteristic of the Chalkedonical parish)7 indicates the existence of the strong Orthodox-Chlakedonian influences in the kingdom of Gagik I. Except the immense political and cultural influence of the Byzantine Empire in East Anatolian-West Transcaucasian area, the existence of the numerous Georgian-Orthodox population in the Ani kingdom must be taken into account. In the inscription of Gagik's wife, queen Katramirde, from the Ani cathedral which was built simultaneously with the St. Gregory church, Gagik is mentioned as Shahinshah of Armenians and Georgians.8

The St. Gregory church fell down soon after its completion; it seems to have never been very stable and the strengthening of the walls and columns was carried out, but without success; already before its final collapse the church was nearly empty: all valuables had been taken out.9

The statue of Gagik I (the height of 3,5 m) was put together from 69 fragments and the model of the church from 20 pieces by the artist S. N. Poltoratski, the member of the excavation team of N. Marr.10 After its restoration the statue was placed in the museum of Ani which was arranged by the Russian administration in the building of the former Turkish mosque.11 As to J. Strzygovski, the reason of the distressing state of the sculpture was presumably its downfall from a high place, as the roof of the church, where on the gable of the back side of the Georgian and Armenian churches the founder of a church is usually depicted.12 But to

________________________

(VI, VII i X vekov). The second international symposium on Armenian art. Collection of reports, vol. III. Third Section: Medieval Art. Yerevan, 1981 (in Russian), 80.

7 Th. Schmit, Review - N. Marr, Ausgrabungen und Arbeiten in Ani im Sommer 1906. Byzantinische Zeitschrifl, B. 17. Leipzig, 1908, 282.

8 Strzygowski, op. cit., 57.

9 T.A. Sinclair, Eastern Turkey: an architectural and archaeological survey, vol. I. London, 1987, 363ff.

10 Strzygowski, op. cit., 72, 431. S. Poltoratski made also the policromically painted counterpart of the statue with the model of the church in the kings hands (See, N.Ya. Marr, Ani. Knizhnaya istorya goroda i raskopki gorodishcha. Leningrad-Moscow. 1934 (in Russian), 108, pl. XXVII, fig. 91).

" Cf. Strzygowski, op. cit., 822, fig. 773.

12 Strzygowski, op. cit., 432, 706.

 

 

62 Giorgi Leon Kavtaradze (Tbilisi)

imagine such a location of the 3,5 m high statue on the round plan church of Gagikashen is rather difficult. The Armenian king's statue was obviously leaned against the wall (perhaps it was placed in a niche) and had slightly detectable look towards the left side (fig. 6).13 The same can be supposed of the Erzerum statue the back of which is flat and unfinished (fig. 7) while the rest of the beard is rather inclined to the left.

The details of the upper levels of the St. Gregory church are unknown because the population who in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and afterwards built their houses over and around the ruins used the masonry of the church; but it is known that the architectural sculpture was mostly copied from equivalent elements of Zvartnots.14

There are signs of restoration also of the statue of the museum: the fragment of it, represented there, was obviously connected by a metallic pin with another lacking part (fig. 8). At the time of the restoration of the statue of Gagik, king's left hand with hanged down sleeve, the small part of the robe, the nose and the lower part'of the cross were amended.15 These parts did not survive on the museum's fragment. In the opinion of N. Marr, the comparison with the image of the founder on the gable of the Akhpat church (near the eastern part of the Armenian-Georgian border) (fig. 9) makes it possible to consider the dress of Gagik (the robe with wide sleeves and turban) as customary for Armenians.16 But we think that the oriental dress of the Armenian king, as well as his Iranian tide -Shahinshah - must have been the reflection of his anti-Byzantine feelings. Exactly the Byzantine Empire abolished Ani Kingdom after forty-five years.

How and when the statue of Gagik came into the exhibition of the Erzerum museum? We know only without doubt that the statue was discovered, as it was mentioned above, in Ani, at 1906, and that it was recorded in the Erzerum museum, as we can suppose by the character of the script in connection with the statue and fixed in the registry-journal of the museum, in the post World War II period. Only in the late 1980s the fragment of the statue found its place in the exhibition of the museum.

_______________________
13 Strzygowski, op. cit., 431f., fig. 471.

14 N.Ya. Marr, Ani. Yerevan, 1939 (in Russian), 119f.; Sinclair, op. cit., 364f.

15 Strzygowski, op. cit., 431.

16 Marr 1939, 109.

 

 

The Problem of the Identification of the Mysterious Statue from die Erzerum Museum 63

Because of the fragmentary character of the statue and of the great number of the folds on its left sleeve which obviously seem to the observer as a lion's mane or a fish-scale, it was at the time of it second detection misinterpreted as a sculpture of a lion or a fish. There are signs that the sculpture was situated in a watery place for years, maybe this is the reason why its polychrome painting did not survive and the primarily pink colour of it (now retained on the unfinished back side) was changed to the red-brown17. Gagik's statue had everywhere traces of paints: the big, white, turban once was reddish, the hair and beard - black, the long robe - red, just as the string on his neck and the cross on it.

About the fate of the statue after its primary discovery and its disposition in Ani museum we can only guess. By the information of specialists the statue disappeared.18 At the same time, a noted scholar, Iosif Orbeli, the member of N. Marr's team, reports that after the decomposition of the Russian front-line of the World War I and the approximation of the Turkish forces in 1917, the statue of the king had been buried again in the earth.19 This information seems more preferable than the one which tells that the statue together with other findings of the Ani expedition have been taken by the Russians in the late 1910s from Ani to Yerevan and that the statue is now in Yerevan.20 It is plausible that the creators of the second information have in mind the above-mentioned counterpart made by S. Poltoratski (fig. 10).

In the late 1910s the scholars of the newly created independent Armenian republic continued investigations at Ani, e.g., in the summer of 1920 an expedition led by Toros Toromanian which included archaeologists, architects, painters and photographers surveyed the medieval Armenian capital, they studied its walls, churches, sculptures, khachkars (funerary stones), inscriptions. In August of the same year in Ani even held conference which focused on the preservation and protection of antiqui-

_______________________

17 Strzygowski, op. cit., 431f.

18 M. Lortkipanidze, Anisi, K'art'uli sabtchot'a Enciklopedia, I, 1973 (in Georgian), 465f.; Aladashvili, op. cit., 84n. 10; G. Gagoshidze, Sanahinis monastris macxovris tadzris t'arighisat'vis, Narkvevebi, II. Tbilisi, 1996 (in Georgian), 123.

19 I.A. Orbeli, Gorodishche Ani i ego raskopki, Izbrannye Trudy. Yerevan: Izdatelstvo Akademii Nauk Armenii, 1963 (in Russian), 121.

20 A. Tucker (ed.). The Berlitz Travellers Guide to Turkey 1992. New Haven & Oxford, 1992, 607f.

 

 

64 Giorgi Leon Kavtaradze (Tbilisi)

ties and furthered plans for the future of the national museum,21 but as it becomes clear from the above information of I. Orbeli the statue was not then dug out. On 30 October, 1920, Kars, after the offensive of Turkish troops, had fallen and during the renewed offensive (the Turkish forces of General Karabekir marched out of Kars on the morning of November 3) the Armenian troops withdrew from the west bank of the Arpachai (Akhurian) River; November 17 they had been driven back to Ani station.22 There are also rumours that the statue of Gagik I was loaded onto a train carriage to take it to Yerevan, but it did not reach its destination.

We can only hope that in the store-rooms of the East Anatolian museums it would be possible to detect some from the lacking parts of the above discussed statue.23

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my gratitude to the staff of the Erzerum Museum and to my Turkish colleagues from the Erzerum University for their kind help during my stay in Erzerum in November '94.

 

 

_____________________________

21 R.G. Hovannisian, The Republic of Armenia, vol. III. From London to Sèvres, February-August 1920. Berkeley, Los Angeles & London; University of California Press, 1996,17, 277

22 R.G. Hovannisian, The Republic of Armenia, vol. IV. Between Crescent

and Sickle: Partition and Sovetization. Berkeley, Los Angeles & London:

University of California Press, 1996, 264, 289; M.G. Somakian, Empires

in Conflict: Armenia and the Great Powers, 1895-1920. London & New

York: Tauris Publishers, 1995, 235f.

23 In T. Sinclair's opinion, most of the decorated stones have been taken away from Ani and are presumably in the museum of Kars (Sinclair, op. cit., 364).

 

 

The Problem of the Identification of the Mysterious Statue fiom the Erzerum Museum 65

1, 3

2, 4

5 6

 

 

66 Giorgi Leon Kavtaradze (Tbilisi)

7, 8

9 10

Back:

publications2.htm 

or

http://www.geocities.com/komblege/kavta.html

RESTITUTIO IN IMTEGRUM

1