COLCHIAN LANGUAGE AND COLCHIAN BRONZE CULTURE

Abstract

The inspiration for this work was a small but excellent article by the late academician Th. Gamkrelidze on the ethnic identification of ancient Colchis.
To answer the questions posed in the article - what language did King Ayet speak and what population met the Argonauts in Colchis - one could draw on archaeological data: the material and cultural situation that existed in Colchis, as well as issues of the chronology and circumstances of the Argonauts’ journey.
The culture of the Zan (Megrel-Tchan) speaking population, dating back to the second half of the II millennium and the first half of the I millennium BC, known as the ,,Colchian Bronze Culture” and widespread in Western Georgia and the territory adjacent to it, begins at the time of the voyage of the Argonauts, in the Mycenaean period.
According to Th. Gamkrelidze, the dialect, the ancestor of the Megrelian-Laz language, was distributed in Western Georgia in the era of the arrival of the Greeks, and in this language skin was designated as tqov/tkov. And the Greeks used kov to refer to skin. This word which has no Indo-European cognates and must be regarded as a borrowing from some non-Indo-European source must have been adopted by the Greeks in the country with which they were in contact and where the cult of the sheepskin was widespread.
In our opinion, the cult of the sheepskin is associated with that interest of the Greeks which, according to Strabo, was reflected in the very aim of the Argonauts’ journey: ,,the wealth of this country (Colchis) in gold, silver, iron and copper explains
to us the reason for the (Argonauts’) campaign. The first journey for this purpose was organized by Phrixus...”. It was thanks to these interests - metals, metallurgy - that the modern outside world got acquainted with Colchis, the only Caucasian country mentioned in ancient historical sources, and known from Greek mythological subjects (Argonautics, the myth of Prometheus).
In the myth of Argonauts, in addition to the main characters, there are two figures in the form of cult animals of interest in connection with the Colchian Bronze Culture. These are the Golden Fleece, a sheepskin of special cult importance, and the dragon, its guard.

The materials reflecting these animals are found in abundance in the Colchian archaeological material.
Bronze figures of rams/sheep images are presented both as whole sculptures and as additional decorations for pendants and other products in the form of ,,sheep heads”(Martvili, Kharagauli, Brili, Svaneti).
And the dragon is one of the images of a guard, a ,,fantastic animal’’, widely distributed in the Colchian Bronze Culture (N. Marr, B. Kuftin, N. Abakelia, N. Sulava, N. Lordkipanidze), which is depicted on almost all items of the Colchian Bronze Culture - from the Colchian ax to fibulae.
The way of life of the bearers of the Colchian Bronze Culture, manifested in cult animals, was reflected in Greek myths.
With the help of these artifacts, the researcher’s idea, that is, ethnic identification, received additional support: ,,Medea and Ayet, the people of the country of Aeaea spoke the Colchian language, the ancestor of the Megrelian-Laz. Akaki Shanidze rightly called this ancestral language Colchian”.