This is the story of Colchis. A contemporary of the Sumerians and Ancient Egyptians, with references in Classical Greek mythology, this pre-Christian kingdom today lies somewhat in obscurity.

But three-and-a-half thousand years ago, Colchis was not some figment of literary imagination. It was Jason and the Argonauts actual gold-encased quest. Its peaks that touched the heavens, where narrative saga decided Zeus would chain Prometheus.

Deep inside the isthmus joining Europe and Asia, in valleys tightly sandwiched between the soaring peaks of the Greater and Lesser Caucasus Mountains were a people of immense wealth. Gold dust speckled its rivers which when caught using sheepskin with shaggy hair, turned them into ‘golden fleece.’ The people there then transformed this gold into exquisite jewellery typified by fine granulation and inlaid gems.

The Greeks called this kingdom Colchis, and that is what it has been known as since. Located across the eastern arm of the Black Sea in Georgia, its political centre was Aia [present-day Kutaisi] and Vani was the spiritual hub.

But these Ancient Colchians did not invent their goldsmithery. They inherited it from a yet older culture, the proto-Colchian Trialeti Great Barrows Culture who developed the archetypical Colchian style in the first half of the 2nd Millennium BCE.

For almost a millennium, from the middle of the 2nd Millennium BCE to the 8th Century BCE there was a lull in Colchis’ gold production. When goldsmithery emerged again, it simply took off from where it had been left off.

During these later years, the Colchians came in contact with the Greeks and Achaemenids [Persians], borrowing on a design element here or a process there. But never losing the unique goldsmithery techniques they had burnished to perfection. This quintessential style survived till the 4th Century CE, past the Greek and Roman colonisation of Colchis.

Excavations since 1947 have revealed multiple hoards in Colchian burial sites. The largest comprised 1,500 pieces of gold jewellery in burial 11 of a noble Colchian woman in Vani, dated mid-5th Century BCE. Another treasure unearthed was the famed 4th Century BCE Akhalgori hoard with pieces that would make many a jeweller gasp in awe.

Welcome to my photo essay on those very mountains from where the gold was sourced and the exquisite Colchian jewellery that was created from it. These pieces are today in the Archaeological Treasury of Tbilisi’s Simon Janashia Museum of Georgia. And though the rivers are no longer awash with gold, the mountains still echo the ancient wealthy Colchian world that called it home.

Necklace with agate centre-piece, Trialeti Great Barrows Culture, early-2nd Millennium BCE.

Trialeti Gold Cup, Trialeti Great Barrows Culture, 18th – 17th Centuries BCE.

Continue reading →