Burials with fibulas from the Brili cemetery: Historical mountainous of Colchis, Racha

Historical mountainous of Colchis, Racha

Abstract

Brili is loaded in the Oni municipality (Racha), a part of the historical mountainous of Colchis with Lechkhumi and Svaneti. The excavation of the Brili cemetery started in 1939 with the leadership of archaeologists G. Gobejishvili. Complexes with fibulas were excavated at the cemetery in 1939, 1940, 1948, 1950-1953, 1960, 1961. 83 fibulas were found in 36 complexes. There are two types of burials: 1 - Pit burials, which are sometimes covered by stone slabs, or a heap of stones; 2 - Stone burials, roofless or covered with stone slabs, and sometimes with cobblestones; Burials were inhumation in an embryonic position, with one, two, or three skeletons.

In addition to tombs, fibulas were excavation in the so-called ,,In the destroyed cremation burials” (4 bronze and 1 iron fibulas, in 1951), also ,,to the north of the cremation ground of the Colchian period, in the burnt layer of the Scythian period” (3 bronze and 3 iron fibulas, in 1951) [G. Gobejishvili].

Most of the fibulas from the Brill cemetery are bronze, a few are iron, and 1 is silver (burial # 9, 1960). They are III types of fibulas [Sulava, 2011: 92] and 7 species: 1 – plain-arc (III 1 a, b, d), with arc longitudinally ornamented with ,,fishbone” pattern (III 2 d), arc with circular type III ,,fishbone’’ ornament (III 3 a); 2 - with arc of right-angled section (III 6 a); 3 - with rhomboid cross-section arc (III 7 a); 4 - with discoid bulges on the arc (III 8 a, i); 5 - with bead-like arc (III 9 a); 6 - with arc adorned with segments of circular bands (III 10 a, a1); 7 - with twisted arc (III 12 a, b).

Burials containing one-piece fibulas of Brill Cemetery date back to the end of the VII century or the VI-IV centuries BC. The typological nuances of Brill's one-piece fibulas, the combination of typological signs, and quantitative concentration here, suggest the existence of an independent workshop.

There were on the Brili cemetery have also been excavated two-piece fibulas. They are of 2 types: 1 - the arc stem is of round section (I 1 a, b), and 2 - arc stem is of rhomboid section (I 2 b). The two-piece arc-shaped fibulae of Brili should also be the work of a local workshop and dated the first centuries AD [Sulava, 2011: 212, 216, cat. 6, 7, 46-48].