ოქრომჭედლობა წინარეანტიკური ხანის კოლხეთში

The earliest golden items appear on the territory of eastern Georgia during the 3 rd millennium BC, in the so-called Early Barrows Culture and after a certain stage of development it reaches its first pick in the Trialeti Great Culture (mid-2 nd millennium BC).In the second half of the 2 nd millennium BC Georgian goldsmithing undergoes some kind of degradation, after which it starts its re-flourishing by the beginning of the 1st millennium BC in the western part of Georgia and reaches second pick of development in the context of Colchian culture in the 5 th -4 th centuries BC.
The 1 st millennium BC in the history of Colchian goldsmithing is that important stage when the foundation had been laid for a unique style of jewelry known as Colchian goldsmithing and which, somewhat later, within the framework of the existence of the political union of the Kingdom of Colchis, became the prerequisite for the masterpieces found in the tombs of noble men.
The study of jewelry samples dated to this period and their study in the appropriate archaeological context is important because: 1) this is the time when Colchis is mentioned for the first time in Greek literary sources and Urartian cuneiform inscriptions; 2) In time and space it corresponds to the first versions of “Argonautics” and is close to the realities depicted in these versions of the myth.
At first, samples of ancient Colchian jewelry were known only as casually found hoards, therefore due to the lack of an appropriate archaeological context, their cultural and chronological affiliation wasn`t reasonably determined.
Archaeological sites studied on the basis of systematic archaeological research over the past 50 years, most of which are collective burial pits of the Colchian type, played a decisive role in the revealing and standing of pre-Classical period Colchian goldsmithing.
The material accumulated in recent years, which unites quite numerous and diverse groups of objects, has created the ground for presenting the Pre-Classical Colchian goldsmithing as a separate phenomenon, distinguished by a number of individual features.