At the ancient city site of Vani, renowned for its exceptional abundance and variety of Hellenistic bronze sculpture fragments, a particularly noteworthy discovery was made on the central terrace within the renowned Twelve-Step Altar complex. Among the sculptural fragments unearthed, two distinct groups emerge: fragments depicting a horse figure and fragments identified, through comparisons with various ancient centers, as components of a cuirass, a well-established type of body armor. Technical analyses have confirmed that the most abundant group, encompassing both horse and cuirass fragments, supports the accuracy of an iconographic and comparative stylistic identification. Consequently, the majority of these fragments likely originated from a single large statue representing an armored equestrian.

This work aims to collect and analyze the onomastic evidence from Colchis dating from the 6th to the 1st centuries BC. This evidence was discovered within the historical territory of Colchis and/or is connected to its history. The materials of interest to us are reflected in narrative sources, numismatic, glyptic, and ceramic artifacts (tiles, amphorae, and tableware).
Currently available onomastic material from Colchis during the specified period is as follows:
6th century BC – ΥΡΜΗΚΟΣ, graffiti, Pichvnari.
5th century BC – ΜΗΤΟΣ, graffiti, Itkhvisi.
First half of 4th century BC – ΟΤΩΙΟΣ, graffiti, ΔΙΟΝΥΣΙΟΣ ΛΕΩΔΑΜΑΝΤΟΣ, graffiti, Pichvnari.
Second half of 4th –first half of 3rd century BC – ΔΕΔΑΤΟΣ (finger-ring); ΗΡΑΚΛΕΙΔΟΥ (roof tile stamps), ΜΗΛΑΒΗC, ΟΡΑΖΟ, ΧΟΡCΙΠ, ΜΗΝΟ, ΕΡΜΩ, ΧΙΤΙC, Χ—–ΧΑ, (roof tile stamps), Vani.
Second half of 3rd–first half of 2nd century BC – ΤΙΜΑΡΧΟΣ, amphora stamp, ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΑΚΟΥ, coin, (Trabzon, village of Kinchkha (Khoni municipality)).
Second half of 2nd – first half of 1st century BC – Saulaces (NH, XXXIII, 52) exact dating unclear; coin? (Generally, Colkhis and Vani); ΦΙΝΤΙΔΟΣ, graffiti; ΑΡCANC, gate inscription, Vani.
Mid-1st century BC – ’Αρίσταρχος (App. Mithr. 114) coin; ’Ολθάκης (App. Mithr. 117).

At the S. Janashia State Museum of Georgia, in the glyptic collection, a diverse and significant group of seals is preserved, including a particularly important assemblage known as the “Iranian Collection.” This article focuses on a unique, multifaceted chalcedony stamp seal from this collection that is of special scholarly interest.
The seal is ten-faceted and made of grey chalcedony. Its body is composed of a multifaceted parallelepiped base surmounted by a carved, pyramid-like upper section. A perforation runs through the stone, indicating that the seal was intended to be suspended by a cord. The main faces of the pyramidal section bear engraved figural representations. The four narrow rectangular faces are undecorated; two of them are pierced by small holes. On the broader base face of the seal is an engraved depiction of a Persian infantry archer shown in left profile. He is standing, wearing a high headdress, a short, belted garment, and high boots, with one knee slightly bent and one hand resting on a curved bow.
The remaining faces of the pyramid display animal motifs: an archer crane with a drawn bow on one face, a duck on another, a fox in left profile depicted in motion on a larger face, and a wild chicken on a smaller face. The truncated apex of the pyramid is engraved with a bird with a long tail.
This ten-faceted seal from the “Iranian Collection” is an example of Greco-Persian glyptic art and is dated to the first half or the mid-4th century BC. The iconography and the stylistic features of the engravings do not conform strictly to either Persian or Greek artistic traditions but instead reflect a hybrid Greco-Persian style. This stylistic synthesis suggests a production center in southern or southwestern Anatolia, a region closely connected to eastern Greek and Hittite-Hurrian cultural centers, as well as to central Iranian traditions.

Since the early Paleolithic, the human hand has played a vital role in survival – used for tool-making, food acquisition, and defense. As ealy humans adapted to changing climates, the development of society closely followed the evolution of manual skills and cognitive growth. From the Upper Paleolithic (ca. 45,000-40,000 years ago), archaeological finds and cave art reveal distinctions in the use of the right and left hands. The symbolic significance of the hand became more prominent with the rise of early civilizations in the 4th millennium BCE, seen in monumental art, pyramid reliefs, clay vessels, and religious rituals. Depictions of hands continued across cultures – in biblical texts, nomadic burials, and sacred practices – highlighting their enduring importance. Even today, despite technological advances, the hand remains central to human expression and interaction.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, Georgian and foreign scholars—including members of various academic missions—made significant contributions to the study of Georgian antiquities. These scholars recorded existing data and conducted detailed studies of temples, churches, fortresses, inscriptions, and individual artifacts. Through drawings, descriptions, and photographs, they documented these items with exceptional precision. In many cases, their records are the only surviving evidence of monuments or artifacts now lost. The expeditions uncovered previously unknown or little-understood sites, many of which were either undocumented or had been inaccurately described in earlier scholarship. Thanks to the extensive efforts of the scholars in question, numerous archaeological sites were properly named, dated, and introduced into academic discourse. The documentation they produced remains essential to the study of Georgia’s antiquities across various historical periods.
This paper aims to highlight the efforts of both renowned and lesser-known scholars, archaeologists, and even amateur enthusiasts who discovered, excavated, recorded, and analyzed archaeological remains across Georgia. Their dedication played a vital role in preserving and promoting the country’s cultural heritage. In many cases, they managed to rescue and document even the most fragmentary or endangered traces of the past, laying the foundation for the emergence of archaeology as a discipline in Georgia.

This article presents the life of the Georgian-born Armenian historian and economist Gagik Pichikian. He was born in 1882 in the town of Akhalkalaki. He received his higher education in Tbilisi and later continued his studies at Moscow University. After returning from Moscow, he began working as a lecturer at Tbilisi State University, where he taught courses in economics and history.
From 1931 to 1934, Gagik Pichikian continued his career as deputy director of the South Caucasus branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Following the reorganization of this institution, he served as deputy director of the N. Marr Institute of Language, History, and Material Culture.
Gagik Pichikian was actively involved in political activities and authored a number of scholarly works on the economic history of the South Caucasus, as well as on historiography and ethnography. For the first time, this article presents documents from his personal archive, preserved in the National Archives of Yerevan.

The Kharagauli Cave was discovered accidentally in 2018 during archaeological survey work conducted in the Kharagauli Municipality. The cave became accessible after the blasting of a rock massif in 2014 near Kharagauli, in the territory of the village of Bazaleti, at the so-called Tunnel No. 12.
Preliminary investigations indicated that the site represents a Middle Palaeolithic human occupation. Two cultural layers were identified in the stratigraphic section of the cave. The assemblage recovered from the lower layer appeared typologically very archaic, suggesting considerable antiquity.
The discovery attracted significant scholarly interest, and several international colleagues joined the project, including Erella Hovers (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Mareike Stollschmidt and Thomas Bird (University of Vienna). Colleagues from the Georgian National Museum also participated in the project, including Nino Jakeli, Eliso Kvavadze, and doctoral candidate Nikoloz Vanishvili.
The results proved sufficiently promising that the project received financial support from the National Geographic Society shortly after the initial application. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, large-scale fieldwork could not be carried out between 2019 and 2022. More extensive investigations were finally undertaken in 2023.
During this season, a section approximately 1.5 m in width was cleaned and prepared. Samples were collected throughout the entire stratigraphic sequence for absolute dating, ancient DNA analysis, palynological studies, and other laboratory analyses.