About Us

Staff members of the Batumi Archaeological Museum have taken part in national and international conferences, and have organized many important scientific meetings. Four volumes of the journal Activities of the Batumi Archaeological Museum have come out, and articles by staff members have been published in  scientific publications. Two monographs in Georgian and English dealing with the Pichvnari excavations have appeared (Michael Vickers and Amiran Kakhidze, Pichvnari 1: Results of Excavations Conducted by the Joint British-Georgian Expedition 1998-2002 [2004]; Amiran Kakhidze, Pichvnari 2: Results of Excavations Conducted by the N. Berdzenishvili Batumi Research Institute Pichvnari Expedition 1967-89 [2007]). At the end of 2007 a permanent exhibition arranged by period was opened at the Museum, introducing the visitor to the ancient history and culture of the region.

The exhibition shows that Georgia is a country with a rich historical past. Its place in the development of early mankind is illustrated by the evidence from Dmanisi for the earliest hominids in Eurasia. This material has been dated by associated finds (stone artefacts and faunal material) to between 1,800,000 and 1,700,000 BC. These ancestors of present-day man reached Georgia from Africa via the Middle East.

Georgia is even richer in archaeological remains of later periods. Hundreds of Acheulian and Mousterian sites have been traced on the Javakheti plateau, in Lower Kartli, the Iori-Alazani basin, on the territory of Inner Kartli, at the confluence of the rivers Rioni and Qhvirila, and on the territory of modern Abkhazia. A local example is to be found in the Acheulian site near Beshumi, a  resort on Bolura ridge in the Adjaran mountain region.

The western part of the southern Caucasus, including Adjara, witnessed the transition from an economy based on hunter-gathering and fishing to a manufacturing economy involving such activities as farming, livestock-breeding, pottery, and weaving. Innovations in stone tool technology can be observed in the material found on Adjaran Neolithic sites (of the 8^th-6^th millennia BC) such as Beshumi, Qhishla, Makhvilauri, Chaisubani, Sakhalvasho, Choloki, Jikhanjuri, Khutsubani, Kvirike, and the village of Kobuleti. This rich material includes tools such as blades, axes, drills, scrapers, carving instruments, slingstones, whetstones, weights, and handmills, as well as flakes and fragments resulting left over from their manufacture.

Many sites on the territory of Georgia bear witness to further human progress made in the Eneolithic period and the Early Bronze Age. This was a period of transition to farming and raw metal processing.  Local developments, represented by the Shulaveri and Kura-Araxes cultures, occurred within the framework of similar developments in the Middle East, Egypt, the Aegean world, Europe and Central Asia. There are interesting archaeological finds from this period from Adjara, and the Museum possesses such items as bone perforators, jar-like vessels, flint arrowheads, crucibles, one-handled vessels, and fragments of hearths.

The Middle (end of the 3^rd millennium – first half of the 2^nd millennium BC) and the Late Bronze – Early Iron Age (14^th-8^th centuries BC) witnessed new cultural complexities. The advanced cultures of the Central Transcaucasus and of Colchis played a major role in the way the world developed.

The south-western part of Georgia, the territory of Adjara and Guria, and the Chorokhi river basin formed the kernel of Colchian tribal culture and the cradle of the ancient confederations (Dayeni/Diaokhi and Qulkha) that antedated the foundation of states proper. There were important centres of iron production here: in the Chorokhi basin, the Chakvistsqhali valley, the Choloki-Ochkhamuri confluence, and the Supsa-Gubazeuli basin. The ancient Greek myth of the Argonauts was associated with these places. The Batumi Archaeological Museum is rich in the remains of the material culture of this period. The exhibition includes different types of Colchian axe, moulds, stone mortars, bellows, iron slag, bronze buckets, spirals, andirons, stone hammers, daggers, fluted clay vessels, dolphin bone pipes, etc.

         The highlights of the display, however, are the most recent archaeological finds which reflect urban life in this region and close contacts with Classical civilization. Colchis was a powerful state in the Classical period. Herodotus wrote: “In Asia dwell the Persians, extending to the southern sea called the Red. Beyond them towards the north dwell the Medes, and beyond the Medes the Saspires, and beyond the Saspires the Colchians, who reach the northern sea, wherein the river Phasis issues. So from sea to sea are these four races” (translated by J.E. Powell).