CATTLE-SHAPED VESSELS OF TIGRANAKERT IN ARTSAKH – 2019-1

Summary

Armine A. Gabrielyan

Key words – Tigranakert in Artsakh, antique ceramics, ornamental decoration, heraldic scene, Tree of Life, goats, Ancient East, glyptic.

One of the main results of ashcan logical excavations is the rich collection of late antique pottery of Tigranakert of Artsakh (1st century BC-3rd century AD). This distinguished by the great variety of forms and types. The present article is devoted to the morphological, functional and artistic examination of antique ceramics of Tigranakert of Arsakh.

The number of such vessels founded from Tigranakert is over three dozens. One of their peculiarities is the flat-cut lip and the unique solution of the crown, which has a circular groove. These vessels do not carry any trace of fire. There are some examples of boiler-shaped vessels which have rich decorations, that is why it gives grounds to say that they were used as a tableware.

One of the sucl, vessels composition is the Life Tree and two goats standing besides.

The iconography of the heraldic-standing goats on both sides of the tree was widespread even before the 4th-3rd millennium BC in the Old East’s glyptic and in the ornamental decoration of ceramics, later also in the toreutics.

We do not know anything about the illustration with such composition among antique ceramics of Armenia. The finding of Tigranakert is still the only one that shows the viability of the existing tentative motive. The detailed examination of this composition is also important in the sense that later, especially in the Middle Ages, it was widely spread, in particular, it was stamp-ornament: of socalled stamped jars