History, Archaeology, Ethnography

G. Kipiani

Bronze Rectangle Buckler - Problem of Their Attribution

Scholars have been interested in Georgian bronze buckles since the first half of the 19^th century and this interest has continued until today.

• Each buckle belongs to this or that group or subgroup. The main characteristic feature (and it is the only one), according with these groups were formed, was their device or, more particularly, their schemes of compositions represented on them (the main animal and their secondary ones around it) and not their size, or their pointed hogs (5 cm in height, representing reduced models of hogged plates) which, first of all, stress that they aren't at all decorative ones.
  It seems fairly certain that the buckles were used for some purposes.
• Length of the plates varies from 8 to 18 cm and the height - from 6 to 14 cm.

Normally, there's no need to curve any wast-belt buckle becouse they are quite small, but the one, 14-18 cm in length, is impossible to wear if not bent.

Besides this, the burckles are furnished with pointed bosses (hogged plates) at the angles, which somehow give them a shape of a weapon that might be attached to the breast, not to waist and used at the moment of hand-to hand fight.

All the buckles are made of bronze and their devices (even their rough parallels) aren't seen on any other pieces of the same significance, or on the dressing objects that makes us to suppose that the form, meterial and the device itself was previously determined and "ordered" for some certain group of people.

According to find spots, we can easily imagine the area of their geogrphic expanse - the buckles were mostly interspersed along Georgia's historical roads and naer the passes of the main Cucasian mountain ridge i.e. along ancient military routes.

Besides the poads, there are some strictly enclosed areas where buckles, belonging to this or that group were found.

Analysis of all the data just cited, allows us to put forward a number of conclusions: most of the buckles were parts of warriors' equipment.

• Each separate model of the buckle belonged to a certain military community;
• Buckles of this kind originated in Georgia as "ordered" insignia (emblems), used for certain exclusive purposes;
• This kind of "order" might only be executed for the requirements of royal army between the turn of 3^rd  c. B.C. - 2^nd c. A.D.

The Center of Archaeological Researches, Mtskheta

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