Bogucki P., Crabtree P. Ancient Europe 8000 B.C.-A.D. 1000: Encyclopedia of the Barbarian World. Volume 2

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characterized by the development of the oppida.

These were large fortiﬁed settlements, usually on

hilltops, that had populations substantially larger

than any earlier settlements in the region and show

evidence of larger-scale manufacturing and trade.

Research has shown that the development of these

towns was a long and gradual process. Among the

principal oppida in east-central Europe are Strado-

nice, Hrazany, Trˇísov, and Závist in Bohemia; Staré

Hradisko in Moravia; Bratislava and Zemplín in Slo-

vakia; Sopron, Velemszentvid, and Budapest-

Gellérthegy in Hungary; and Z

idovar in Serbia.

The reasons that oppida developed during the

second century

B.C. are much debated. Some ar-

chaeologists favor a primarily defensive explanation.

The second century

B.C. was a time of increased vio-

lence and migration, and communities banded to-

gether, built large fortiﬁed settlements, and moved

inside to protect themselves against attackers. Oth-

ers argue for a mainly economic basis. During this

time, commerce was expanding rapidly. Roman im-

ports were more common, both at the oppidum set-

tlements and elsewhere, and trade with all parts of

Europe is evident. Coinage developed late in the

third century

B.C., and at many of the oppida, such

as Stradonice, a money-based economy was created.

Another explanation is primarily political. Society in

temperate Europe was becoming more complicat-

ed. The need for both defense against outside ag-

gressors and management of the complex econo-

mies gave an advantage to the organization of larger

political units. We know that in Gaul during the

ﬁnal century

B.C. the oppida were the political capi-

tals of the groups that the Romans recognized as

tribes. Thus, the oppida throughout Europe came

into being perhaps in part to serve as centers of po-

litical units that were forming at the time.

At excavated oppida evidence for extensive iron-

working is prevalent. In most cases, iron ores were

available on or close to the surface near the settle-

ments. There are abundant remains of smelting slag

and furnaces and of tools and debris from the pro-

cess of forging wrought iron into a wide variety of

tools, weapons, building elements, and ornament.

In this period, smiths were producing much more

iron than in earlier times, and they were fashioning

tools that made many tasks more efﬁcient. Iron

plowshares made the plowing of ﬁelds, including

those on rich, heavy loam, much less difﬁcult and

time-consuming. Scythes made harvesting of hay

easier than it had been with earlier tools. Nails ﬁrst

appeared in quantities at this time, improving the

construction of houses, wagons, boats, and other

wooden structures.

While the phenomenon of these large and often

commercially and politically central communities

suggests similar processes of economic and political

change throughout much of temperate Europe, in-

dividual oppida varied in character. Stradonice was

one of the most densely occupied and commercially

active centers in Late Iron Age Europe. Unfortu-

nately, the site was extensively excavated under un-

scientiﬁc conditions during the nineteenth century,

and good maps or plans do not exist of the settle-

ment or of locations of important ﬁnds. The mass

of objects recovered on the site, however, indicates

the range of manufacturing and commercial activi-

ties in which the community was engaged. Iron-

working is well represented, and numerous ham-

mers, knives, axes, and other implements were

found. Locks and keys suggest an important change

in the need for personal security at these large cen-

ters.

Potters produced a variety of ceramics, ranging

from large, coarse-textured storage vessels to thin-

walled, ornately painted vessels thrown on the fast-

turning potter’s wheel. Fibulae, of which some thir-

teen hundred specimens are known from Strado-

nice, were made most often of bronze and iron but

sometimes of silver and gold. Certain glass beads

and bracelets may have been imported and others

made onsite. Communities at some of the oppida

started minting coins in about the middle of the sec-

ond century

B.C., and at Stradonice bronze, silver,

and gold coins are represented. Engagement in

commerce with the Roman world is evident in im-

ported ceramic amphorae which probably once con-

tained wine, bronze vessels, and fragments of

writing tablets, exemplifying a new technology in-

troduced through trade between the oppida and

merchants in the Mediterranean Basin.

At the Late Iron Age settlement at Závist, the

fortiﬁcation walls enclose 170 hectares, making this

the largest of the oppida in Bohemia. Excavations

have revealed a site less densely occupied than Stra-

donice, however, and with fewer archaeological ma-

terials. Excavations at Staré Hradisko in Moravia

yielded ﬁnds similar to those at Stradonice but from

6: THE EUROPEAN IRON AGE, C. 800 B.C.– A.D. 400

300

ANCIENT EUROPE

a settlement apparently not as densely inhabited.

The detailed plans produced by archaeologists show

that the settlement was divided into individual

units—similar to small agricultural settlements—

rather than being designed on a centralized scheme.

At Zemplín in Slovakia, the area enclosed by the de-

fensive system is smaller than that at many of the

sites to the west, and a substantial settlement lies

outside the fortiﬁcations. At Z

idovar in Serbia, ex-

cavations have uncovered a fortiﬁed hilltop settle-

ment with well-built houses with packed clay ﬂoors

and, in some cases, stone foundations. Thus, con-

siderable variation in size and character is apparent

among these complex Late Iron Age settlements.

In the past, the oppida have attracted a great

deal of research attention. Later archaeologists have

explored the typical small farming communities that

are evident throughout east-central Europe, as in

other parts of the Continent. Important investiga-

tions at the settlements of Strachotín and Boritov in

Moravia show that even small communities manu-

factured pottery and iron tools, and they were con-

nected closely to the large economic and political

centers at the oppida.

Ritual.

At the time that the oppida were estab-

lished in the second and ﬁrst centuries

B.C., rectan-

gular enclosures, usually known by the German

term Viereckschanzen, became common throughout

the same regions. Typically, they are bounded by an

external ditch and a wall on the inside; the enclosed

area is roughly 90 by 90 meters, though sizes vary.

Archaeologists have debated the purpose of these

sites. Among the interpretations are enclosed farm-

steads, animal pens, small fortresses, and ritual

places. Deposits recovered in deep pits on certain

sites and in the ditches on others have lent support

to the ritual theory. Intensive investigation of many

of these enclosures in different part of central Eu-

rope, however, has suggested a more complex pic-

ture. While many sites yield evidence that strongly

supports ritual activity, others include typical do-

mestic settlement debris, such as pottery fragments,

animal bones, and scraps from manufacturing pro-

cesses, very much like the material found on typical

habitation sites. Archaeologists are beginning to re-

alize that settlement and ritual places do not need

to be viewed as separate. Perhaps in the Late Iron

Age, in particular, people often engaged in ritual ac-

tivity within their settlements.

At Msˇecké Z

ehrovice in Bohemia a pair of such

enclosures has been excavated. Wooden buildings

inside them differ from typical houses of the period

and have been interpreted as ritual in purpose. A

roughly life-size stylized human head sculpted of

stone, with classic La Tène–style scrolled eyebrows

and mustache, and wearing a neck ring was found

in association with one enclosure (ﬁg. 2). This ar-

chetypal example of “Celtic art” supports the inter-

pretation of the Msˇecké Z

ehrovice complex as part-

ly, but not necessarily completely, ritual in purpose.

In this ﬁnal phase of the prehistoric Iron Age,

it became common practice in much of Europe to

deposit iron tools in pits in the ground. While the

argument can be made for precious metals, such as

gold and silver coins, and even for bronze that such

hoarding may have been intended to protect valu-

able materials from theft, in the case of iron this ar-

Fig. 2. Stone head from Msˇ ecké Z

ehrovice, Bohemia,

associated with a pair of rectangular enclosures, ﬁrst century

B.C. COURTESY OF THE NÁRODNÍ MUZEUM, PRAGUE. REPRODUCED BY

PERMISSION

IRON AGE EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE

ANCIENT EUROPE

301

gument is less persuasive. By the ﬁnal phase of the

Iron Age, iron had little value, because it was being

produced in such vast quantities. Moreover, unlike

gold, silver, and bronze, iron objects rusted quickly

in the damp soils of temperate Europe. Iron hoards

more likely were ritual in nature.

A cache found at Kolín in Bohemia contained

sixty-eight objects, among them implements for use

in the hearth, such as vessels; a suspension chain for

hanging a cauldron over a ﬁre; and a hearth shovel.

Other tools were for ironworking and carpentry.

Agricultural tools were present as well—plowshares,

hoes, a scythe, and a sickle. Keys, parts of weapons,

and attachments from a wagon and from horse har-

nesses also were present. Comparing the contents of

this assemblage with hoards from other sites points

up particular themes represented by the objects—

hearth and home, nutrition, and transformation

(smithing tools to change ore into iron). Not far

away, at Stary Kolín, was found a deposit of more

than three hundred gold coins, similar to many

other coin hoards of this period in temperate

Europe.

Writing.

At Zenjak in Slovenia was found a depos-

it of twenty-four bronze helmets, one with writing

incised on the brim. The helmet type is common in

Slovenia; it is known as a Negau helmet, after the

German name for the site. Linguistic analysis of the

characters has identiﬁed them as part of an alphabet

known to have been used in northern Italy at that

time, and the inscription is the earliest known in a

Germanic language. The meaning of the inscription

has been much debated. Some believe it calls upon

a god for assistance, whereas others think it desig-

nates ownership of the helmet. The fact that the ear-

liest known inscription in a Germanic language

should be found far away from the region in which

Romans of this period identiﬁed Germans adds to

the complication of interpreting the signiﬁcance of

this object.

See also Germans (vol. 2, part 6); Oppida (vol. 2, part 6);

Ritual Sites: Viereckschanzen (vol. 2, part 6); La

Tène Art (vol. 2, part 6).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bouzek, Jan. Greece, Anatolia, and Europe: Cultural Inter-

relations during the Early Iron Age. Studies in Mediter-

ranean Archaeology 122. Jonsered, Sweden: Paul

stroms Förlag, 1997.

Collis, John. Oppida: Earliest Towns North of the Alps. Shef-

ﬁeld, U.K.: Department of Prehistory and Archaeology,

University of Shefﬁeld, 1984.

Gusˇtin, Mitja. “Die Kelten in Jugoslawien: Übersicht über

das archäologische Fundgut.” Jahrbuch des Römisch-

Germanischen Zentralmuseums Mainz 31 (1983): 305–

363.

Kristiansen, Kristian. Europe before History. New York: Cam-

bridge University Press, 1998.

Krizˇ, Borut. The Celts in Novo Mesto/Kelti v Novem mesto.

Novo mesto, Slovenia: Dolenjski muzej, 2001.

Kruta, Venceslas. Les Celtes: Histoire et dictionnaire, des ori-

gines à la romanisation et au christianisme. Paris: Édi-

tions Robert Laffont, 2000.

Moscati, Sabatino, ed. The Celts. New York: Rizzoli, 1991.

Palavestra, Aleksandar. “Prehistoric Trade and a Cultural

Model for Princely Tombs in the Central Balkans.” In

Europe in the First Millennium

B.C. Edited by K. Kris-

tiansen and J. Jensen, pp. 45–56. Shefﬁeld, U.K.: J. R.

Collis Publications, 1994.

Parzinger, Hermann, Jindra Nekvasil, and Fritz Eckart

Barth. Die Bycí skála-Höhle: Ein hallstattzeitlicher

Höhlenopferplatz in Mähren. Mainz, Germany: Verlag

Philipp von Zabern, 1995.

Venclová, Natalie. Mˇsecké Z

ehrovice in Bohemia: Archaeolog-

ical Background to a Celtic Hero, 3rd–2nd Century

B.C.

Sceaux, France: Kronos, 1998.

Wells, Peter S. “The Iron Age.” In European Prehistory: A

Survey. Edited by S. Milisauskas, pp. 335–383. New

York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2002.

ETER S. WELLS

6: THE EUROPEAN IRON AGE, C. 800 B.C.– A.D. 400

302

ANCIENT EUROPE

THE EUROPEAN IRON AGE, C. 800 B.C.– A.D. 400

IRON AGE CAUCASIA

■

The Iron Age (deﬁned broadly as an archaeological

period from c. 1200 to 300

B.C.) in Caucasia wit-

nessed a series of remarkable transformations in the

social, cultural, and political traditions of the region

that have left indelible marks upon the region’s cul-

tural landscape and contemporary geopolitics. Dur-

ing this era, small, hierarchical, centralized polities

emerged as the dominant features of the region’s

social order. In some areas, particularly southern

Caucasia, these archaic sociopolitical formations

subsequently fused into large empires; in other re-

gions, traditions of local control persisted even as

contacts with an expanding ecumene—driven by

both Greek colonialism and Achaemenid imperial-

ism—brought new social forces and cultural inﬂu-

ences into the region. This brief overview provides

an orientation to the region’s primary sociopolitical

transformations. Because the beginning of the Iron

Age closely followed traditions established in the

Bronze Age, this account begins in the early second

millennium

B.C. and concludes with a brief histori-

cal discussion of post–Iron Age Caucasia from the

conquests of Alexander the Great through the

Roman defeat of both the Pontic kingdom (66

B.C.)

and Tigran II’s Armenian empire (65

B.C.).

GEOGRAPHIC ORIENTATION

The Caucasus range traverses more than 1,100 kilo-

meters, from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea along

the northern end of the isthmus that separates the

Eurasian steppes from Southwest Asia. Caucasia

continues to be shaped by the tectonic action of the

Arabian and Eurasian plates, a collision that has

thrown up the Caucasus Mountains, folding the un-

derlying bedrock and erecting high volcanic peaks.

The volcanic activity that raised peaks, such as

Mount Elbrus, Mount Ararat, and Mount Aragats,

to name only a few, covered the region with a sea

of lava, leaving behind vast deposits of basalt, tuff,

and obsidian. Caucasia is an ecologically diverse re-

gion with provinces ranging from the subtropical

Colchian depression in the west, to the well-

watered high mountains in the south, to the arid

steppes in the east. Climate is similarly variable, with

average annual rainfall varying from about 2,500

millimeters on the Black Sea coast near the modern

Georgian city of Batumi to less than 200 millimeters

on the Apsheron Peninsula of eastern Azerbaijan.

Throughout much of Caucasia, the period of heavi-

est precipitation is between March and mid-May,

but whereas summers are dry, heavy snows can fall

in the highlands during the winter.

Distinct geographic provinces within Caucasia

are most readily deﬁned in reference to elevation

and the Kura and Araxes River drainages. Southern

Caucasia is most readily deﬁned as the highland

middle Araxes River and its drainages: a region of

rugged upland mountains and high plateaus. Aver-

age elevation is between 1,200 and 1,800 meters

above sea level, dipping below 1,000 meters only in

the fertile Ararat Plain. The highlands of northern

Caucasia are deﬁned by the upper and middle Kura

River and its drainages. North Caucasia should not

be confused with the North Caucasus region, which

encompasses the northern slopes of the Great Cau-

casus. Western Caucasia (the Colchian depression,

drained by the westward-ﬂowing Rioni and Inguri

ANCIENT EUROPE

303

Selected sites and major polities in Bronze Age and Iron Age Caucasia. DRAWN BY ADAM SMITH.

Rivers) and eastern Caucasia (the steppes of Azer-

baijan, crossed by the lower Araxes and Kura as they

sprint to the Caspian) are both low-lying areas char-

acterized by broad open terrain.

FROM THE MIDDLE BRONZE AGE

TO THE EARLY IRON AGE

The end of the Early and beginning of the Middle

Bronze Age, across most of Caucasia, was marked

by the disappearance of the Kura-Araxes archaeo-

logical horizon (deﬁned most readily by distinctive

black burnished ceramic complexes) and the large-

scale abandonment of settled village communities.

Except for the late-third-millennium

B.C. layers

from the Bedeni sites in southern Georgia, there is

little evidence for continuity in Early and Middle

Bronze Age occupations, and indeed comparatively

few Middle Bronze Age settlements have been doc-

umented in Caucasia. As a result, the vast majority

of the archaeological record for the Middle Bronze

Age comes from mortuary sites. The tombs and

kurgans of Shengavit, Trialeti (old group, a distinc-

tive group of burials within the Trialeti complex),

and Martkopi indicate profound social, cultural,

and political transformations were under way dur-

ing the third quarter of the third millennium

B.C.

This shift in settlement patterns across Caucasia

during the Early to Middle Bronze transition is tra-

ditionally interpreted as evidence of the advent of

increasingly nomadic social groups predicated upon

pastoral subsistence production. The appearance of

ox and horse sacriﬁces in numerous Middle Bronze

I and II burials attests to the increased prominence

of pastoral production and equestrian mobility

within these communities. The shifting subsistence

economy was also accompanied by fundamental

transformations in the social milieu, changes that

centered on emerging radical inequality between a

martial elite and the remainder of the social body.

The rich inventories of Middle Bronze Age kurgans

signify a profound departure in social relations from

those indicated by the burials of the Kura-Araxes

6: THE EUROPEAN IRON AGE, C. 800 B.C.– A.D. 400

304

ANCIENT EUROPE

phase. Even more dramatic expressions of this in-

equality are visible in the following Middle Bronze

II period, when a great part of highland Caucasia

was enveloped in the Trialeti-Vanadzor horizon,

which was most prominently marked by large burial

complexes of unprecedented wealth. The monu-

mental construction and rich mortuary goods of

tombs from Trialeti, Vanadzor, Karashamb, and

Lori Berd as well as the iconography of elite privi-

lege portrayed on the metal vessels from Karashamb

(ﬁg. 1) and Korukh Tash testify to profound

changes in the social orders of Caucasia and provide

the initial indications of emergent sociopolitical in-

equality in the region.

During the Middle Bronze III period, Caucasia

appears to have fragmented into several distinct ma-

terial culture horizons. If the earlier Trialeti-

Vanadzor sites present a relatively homogeneous

horizon style for the Middle Bronze II phase, trans-

formations in burial construction and the forms and

styles of painted and black ornamented pottery dur-

ing the succeeding period indicate the differentia-

tion of the region into at least three contemporary,

overlapping ceramic horizons: Karmir-Berd, Sevan-

Uzerlik, and Karmir-Vank. Karmir-Berd materials

largely prevail in the highlands of central-southern

and northern Caucasia. The Sevan-Uzerlik horizon

tends to predominate in the western steppe of Azer-

baijan, the Nagorno-Karabakh highlands, and the

Sevan and Syunik regions of Armenia. The Karmir-

Vank horizon is best known from the Nakhichevan

region of Azerbaijan and the site of Haftavan Tepe

in northwestern Iran. These general regional divi-

sions cannot be taken as rigid geographic mosaics.

Sevan basin sites have also yielded evidence of Kar-

mir-Vank and Karmir-Berd painted pottery; Ararat

Plain sites have included both Karmir-Berd and

Sevan-Uzerlik materials; and Sevan sites contain

both Karmir-Berd and Sevan-Uzerlik ceramics. In

Georgia, the Trialeti-Vanadzor horizon persists into

the Middle Bronze III phase at sites such as Treli,

Tsavgli, Natakhtari, and Pevrebi; however, it is also

possible to detect the inﬂuence of Sevan-Uzerlik

complexes as well, represented by black pottery with

dotted lines.

During the Middle Bronze III phase, the

wealth of the burial inventories seen in the preced-

ing phase begins to diminish such that, in the com-

plexes represented by Karmir-Berd or Karmir-

Fig. 1. A Middle Bronze Age goblet from Karashamb.

COURTESY OF THE INSTITUTE OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND ETHNOGRAPHY,

YEREVAN, ARMENIA. REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION.

Berd/Sevan Uzerlik pottery, relatively few bronze

artifacts have been recorded. Furthermore, in the

complexes that signify the end of Middle Bronze

Age, the distinctive painted pottery becomes in-

creasingly rare, yielding to the incised gray and

blackware ceramics that came to predominate under

the Lchashen-Metsamor horizon of the Late

Bronze Age.

The ﬁrst clear evidence for sociopolitical com-

plexity in southern Caucasia appears in the Late

Bronze Age. The Late Bronze Age is marked most

conspicuously by the reappearance of numerous

permanent settlements in the form of variably sized

stone-masonry fortresses built atop hills and out-

crops. These fortiﬁed settlements are often associat-

ed with large cemeteries, such as Treligorebi located

on the outskirts of modern Tbilisi, Georgia. The

transition between the Middle and Late Bronze Age

is also marked by the gradual introduction of new

ceramic forms and decorative styles—most notably

the disappearance of painted pottery and punctate

designs in favor of suites of black, gray, and buff

IRON AGE CAUCASIA

ANCIENT EUROPE

305

wares with incised decorations—as well as new ap-

proaches to metallurgical production.

Examinations of Late Bronze and Early Iron

Age sites in Caucasia began in the late nineteenth

century and early twentieth century, when archaeol-

ogists and architectural historians embarked on a se-

ries of nonsystematic surveys to document the set-

tlement history of the region. To date only a

handful of Late Bronze or Early Iron Age settle-

ments, including Metsamor in the Ararat Plain and

Tsakahovit on the northern slope of Mount Ara-

gats, have hosted intensive archaeological investiga-

tions. Evidence of unfortiﬁed settlements remains

scarce, even in regions, such as the Tsakahovit Plain,

that have hosted intensive systematic archaeological

surveys. Archaeological investigations have focused

more resolutely on late-second- to early-ﬁrst-

millennia

B.C. cemeteries. Large mortuary complex-

es at Lchashen (on the northwestern coast of Lake

Sevan), Lori-Berd (in the Lori-Pambakh region of

northern Armenia), and Artik and Horom (both on

the lower western slope of Mount Aragats) have

provided the most extensive orientation to the ma-

terial culture of the era as well as the primary bases

for periodization.

With the dawn of the Late Bronze Age, the so-

cial inequalities visible in the kurgans of the early

second millennium appear to have been formalized

into a tightly integrated sociopolitical apparatus

where critical controls over resources—economic,

social, sacred—were concentrated within the cyclo-

pean stone masonry walls of powerful new centers.

These political centers projected authority well into

the hinterlands. Large-scale irrigation facilities ﬁrst

appear in the region in association with Late Bronze

Age fortress complexes, suggesting signiﬁcant cen-

tralized control over the agricultural productivity of

the region. In addition, vast cemeteries appear coin-

cident with the emergence of Late Bronze Age poli-

ties.

In the Tsakahovit region, an archaeological sur-

vey conducted in 1998 and 2000 recorded a very

high density of Late Bronze Age cemeteries (4.6 per

square kilometer) in the mountain highlands imme-

diately surrounding a series of adjacent fortresses.

Given the lack of nonfortiﬁed settlements in the re-

gion, it is quite likely that non-elite populations may

have continued the highly mobile ways of life that

arose in the Middle Bronze Age, even as elites set-

tled within fortiﬁed complexes. It is possible that

the explosion in tombs and cemeteries in the Late

Bronze Age was part of an effort by emergent socio-

political authorities to increase the commitments of

their subjects to a speciﬁc place (through ties be-

tween ancestral and descendant families and

groups) and thus make them a more stable founda-

tion for the demands of the extractive political econ-

omy.

Many of the material culture forms and styles

developed in the Late Bronze Age continued into

and through the Early Iron Age. Pottery from Early

Iron Age levels is typologically distinct from Late

Bronze III wares but is quite clearly continuous

with Late Bronze Age formal and decorative tradi-

tions. The same holds true for fortress architecture,

which, while distinct in several morphological fea-

tures, remains within the building traditions estab-

lished in the Late Bronze Age. Thus the Early Iron

Age is marked archaeologically by the emergence

and expansion of iron implements but appears to

have been socioculturally continuous with the pre-

ceding era. Examinations of materials recovered

from mortuary contexts suggest that the Early Iron

Age can be divided into two distinct phases: a transi-

tional Early Iron I, dated conventionally to the late

twelfth century and eleventh century

B.C., and an

Early Iron II phase during the tenth and ninth cen-

turies

B.C.

THE MIDDLE IRON AGE: URARTU

The ﬂorescence of local polities during the Late

Bronze and Early Iron Ages was brought to an end

in southern Caucasia by Urartian imperial expan-

sion in the early eighth century

B.C., providing a

rather emphatic terminus for the period visible in

the destruction levels at several sites, including Met-

samor. The state of Biainili, known to the Assyrians

(and hence modern scholarship) as Urartu, appears

to have emerged in eastern Anatolia from a group

of local polities during the late second millennium

and early ﬁrst millennium

B.C. Between the mid-

ninth century and the late eighth century

B.C., the

Urartian kings embarked on a program of imperial

expansion, conquering rivals from the headwaters of

the Euphrates to the south shore of Lake Urmia. Al-

though a Urartian presence had existed north of the

Araxes since the reign of King Ishpuini in the late

ninth century

B.C., the Urartian occupation of

6: THE EUROPEAN IRON AGE, C. 800 B.C.– A.D. 400

306

ANCIENT EUROPE

southern Caucasia did not begin until the second

decade of the eighth century

B.C., when King

Argishti I formalized his military conquests through

an extensive program of fortress construction in the

Ararat Plain.

Although direct Urartian rule in the region was

focused in southern Caucasia, the expansion of the

empire had profound implications for Caucasia as a

whole. The military campaigns of Urartian kings

ranged far more broadly than their ambition to gov-

ern, and the demands of tribute in the form of

goods, livestock, and human captives that they

made upon the vanquished must have had consider-

able implications for local economies of the region.

Furthermore, the rise of Urartu profoundly altered

trade patterns in the region, as the empire was stra-

tegically positioned to regulate north-south ex-

changes between Caucasia and northern Mesopota-

mia as well as east-west trade between central

Anatolia and northern Persia.

Urartu’s imperial era was brought to a close by

a series of military defeats in the late eighth century

B.C. Urartian military and diplomatic incursions into

the southern Urmia basin provoked Sargon II to re-

assert an Assyrian presence in the region. His cam-

paign climaxed in the defeat of the Urartian army

led by King Rusa I. Assyrian intelligence reports in-

dicate that Urartu was also attacked at this time by

Cimmerians crossing the Caucasus and destabilized

by an insurrection within the Urartian ruling elite

that threatened the royal dynasty. Rusa I succeeded

in deﬂecting the Cimmerians and quelling the re-

bellion, thus preserving the dynasty, but Urartu’s

era of expansion came to an end, its imperial designs

checked by Assyria in the south and Cimmerians

moving into Caucasia from the north.

The historical record for Urartu’s reconstruc-

tion period during the seventh century

B.C. is not as

rich as that of the preceding imperial phase. But the

archaeological record is substantial, indicating a re-

consolidation of much of Urartu’s territory, a resur-

gence of Urartian resolve to challenge Assyrian pre-

tensions in the highlands, and a reinvigoration of

the power of Urartian central authorities. The reign

of Rusa II was the apogee of the reconstruction pe-

riod. Thanks to foundation inscriptions, ﬁve major

fortresses, accomplished on a massive scale, are di-

rectly attributable to him, including Teishebai

URU (modern Karmir-Blur) on the Ararat Plain

near Yerevan (ﬁg. 2). Several additional fortresses in

southern Caucasia that lack foundation inscriptions

can also be dated to the reconstruction period based

upon architectural parallels and ceramic assem-

blages. Dynastic succession following Rusa II is un-

clear, leaving some confusion over the last rulers of

the empire and the dating of collapse. The fate of

Urartu and its possessions in southern Caucasia dur-

ing the late seventh century

B.C. is not well under-

stood. Boris Piotrovskii dated the ﬁnal collapse of

Urartu to 590 or 585

B.C. based largely upon a bib-

lical reference, but this chronology is generally

thought to be too long. An inscription of Ashurba-

nipal, dated to 643

B.C., records the submission of

the Urartian king “Ishtar-duri” (Sarduri III or IV)

to the Assyrians. Although this event does not pro-

vide an adequate date for Urartu’s collapse, the em-

pire was never again a signiﬁcant force in the geo-

politics of Southwest Asia.

LATE IRON AGE SOUTHERN

CAUCASIA

Investigations of Late Iron Age Caucasia have been

accomplished at a number of key sites, including Ar-

mavir-Argishtihinili, Erebuni, and Artashat in the

Ararat Plain; Horom and Benjamin in the Shirak

Plain; Sari-Tepe in western Azerbaijan; and small

soundings at Astghi Blur, Jujevan, and Norashen in

northeastern Armenia. These sites together provide

an orientation to the architecture and archaeologi-

cal materials of an era during which the rapid de-

cline of Urartu was followed by the emergence of

local rulers (including the Yervandid, or Orontid,

kings of Armenia) who were subsequently incorpo-

rated as satraps of the Achaemenid empire.

During the Late Iron Age, local ceramic tradi-

tions from the Middle Iron Age continue, in part,

in most sites. In southern Caucasia, preceding Urar-

tian constructions were reoccupied and renovated,

often following episodes of destruction that attend-

ed the Urartian collapse (e.g., at Armavir-

Argishtihinili). The collapse of Urartu appears to

have initiated a transformation in settlement pat-

terns, as populations shifted away from the handful

of large fortresses that dominated life under the

Urartian regime and toward a larger number of

small dispersed towns. Throughout the Urartian

period, local ceramics in Caucasian regions periph-

eral to the major centers continued traditions of the

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preceding Early Iron Age horizons. Following the

collapse of Urartu, these pre-Urartian ceramic tradi-

tions were partly reenergized, as local wares devel-

oped as syntheses of both pre-Urartian and Urartian

traditions.

LATE IRON AGE WESTERN

CAUCASIA: COLCHIS

Colchis, the easternmost archaic Greek colony, has

penetrated the Western imagination largely as a

place of myth: home of Medea and destination of

the Argonauts. Ancient Colchis was located on the

fertile lowlands of the Rioni River drainage of west-

ern Caucasia. The region appears to have developed

along similar lines as the rest of Caucasia during the

Early Iron Age, with the regularization of an en-

trenched elite, the rise of increasingly large settle-

ments, and the development of a robust metallurgi-

cal industry with major centers in Abkhazia to the

north and Adzhar to the south. However, the arrival

of Greek colonists during the sixth century

B.C.

brought unique sociocultural and political forces to

bear upon the region in the Middle and Late Iron

Ages. It has been suggested that it was the promi-

nence of Colchian metallurgy and metalworking

that lured not only the Greeks to Caucasia’s Black

Sea shores—an argument found in the Geographia

(1.2.39) of the Greek scholar Strabo (c. 63

B.C.–c.

A.D. 21)—but also encouraged the northern cam-

paigns of Urartian kings, who referred to the region

as “Kulha” or “Qulha.” Sarduri II, for example,

boasted in his “annals” inscribed on the rock face at

Van Kale of having destroyed twenty-two cities in

Qulha. Furthermore, the incredible scale of bronze

and, later, iron production within the Colchis ar-

chaeological horizon has suggested the possibility

of close economic and social ties to the proliﬁc met-

allurgical traditions of the Koban region of the cen-

tral north Caucasus (North Ossetia).

Despite extensive archaeological and epigraphic

research, however, it is not as yet entirely clear as to

what kind of sociocultural entity Colchis was. Greek

myths suggest a highly centralized kingdom dating

back into the late second millennium

B.C.; however,

Urartian inscriptions indicate a more fragmented

political landscape with a number of kings ruling

discrete portions of the territory from large fortiﬁed

settlements (similar to what they encountered in

southern Caucasia). Nevertheless, broad similarities

in major material culture classes, including metal

and ceramic styles, suggest a degree of sociocultural

integration in western Caucasia even if the case for

political uniﬁcation remains unsubstantiated (al-

though substantial disparities in mortuary cus-

toms—for example, shaft graves such as those at

Dvani in contrast to the dolmens found to the north

in Abkhazia—suggests that variation within the

Colchis archaeological horizon has been under-

stated).

The dating of the arrival of the Greeks is also a

matter of some debate. While the earliest appear-

ance of Greek pottery in the region has been dated

to the end of the seventh century

B.C., it is not until

the mid-sixth century that Colchian sites begin to

boast a substantial corpus of Greek wares. Greek

settlement in the region was limited to the seacoast

and river estuaries. Information about this initial era

of colonization comes largely from archaeological

sources and a few fragments of mythohistorical

sources. However, both do seem to indicate that the

vanguard of initial Greek intrusion came to Phasis,

at the mouth of the Rioni, from Miletus, on the

southwestern coast of Asia Minor. Burials around

Vani, the most extensively excavated aboriginal

Colchian site, suggest a further intensiﬁcation of in-

equality and elite privilege in the era of early Greek

colonialism, with extensive and rich burial invento-

ries, including gold jewelry, silver and bronze per-

sonal ornaments, and local and imported pottery.

The site of Vani itself appears to have been domi-

nated by a local aristocracy that sat at the apex of a

stratiﬁed social hierarchy. The dramatic expansion

in the size and number of large storage jars (pithoi)

during this period has suggested to some scholars

a concomitant increase in the scale of surplus pro-

duction, increasing demands upon the productive

economy from redistributive institutions, or both.

The arrival of Achaemenid imperial forces in

Caucasia established Yervandid Armenia as a formal

satrap and also reconstituted Colchis geopolitically

from a distant periphery to a remarkably cosmopoli-

tan borderland, assimilating and reinventing tradi-

tions and practices from Greece, Persia, and the

Eurasian steppe as well as the diverse array of social

worlds within Iron Age Caucasia. The Histories of

Herodotus (3.97), from the ﬁfth century

B.C., de-

scribes the relationship between an autonomous

Colchis and the Achaemenid regime as based not on

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