Archaeological excavations in Rabati
By Mariam Chanishvili
Wednesday, August 14
Georgian National Museum (GNM) is carrying out archeological excavations in Rabat Settlement by International Archaeologists of GNM in Rabati village, Aspindza.
Surprising and powerful buildings of about 50 centuries ago were discovered on Rabat's settlement, the architecture of which is not yet known in the Caucasus.
Rabati traces life from the Early Bronze Age (III millennium BC) to the Middle Ages. In this regard, Rabat is a vital research site to determine how human adaptation to the environment has progressed and how socioeconomic and cultural changes have affected ancient populations.
Tombs and graves have been found in the vicinity of Rabat settlement; Along with household items, ritual artifacts such as animal skeletons and other different items have been discovered.
The layers of the later period feature figures of stylized animal made of clay from about 43 centuries ago, and presumably ritual vessels, giving a whole new idea of the people of that period. All of this indicates that in the Early Bronze Age the territory of the village of Zveli existed as an important settlement for the region.
Research on the Rabat settlement and the surrounding area is a large-scale international project. The expedition includes a field school, where dozens of students from the University of Melbourne go through archeological excavations each year with Georgian students.
In addition to Georgian and Australian archaeologists, the study involved specialists from France and the UK.
Archaeological excavations at the Rabat settlement are supported by the Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation.
The Georgian National Museum and the University of Melbourne have been cooperating for many years. The framework of this cooperation is the Georgian-Australian Investigations in Archaeology (GAIA), which was launched in 2008 with the excavations at Samtavro Cemetery located in Mtskheta.
This year GAIA also began investigations at Rabati, a large site in the village of Zveli, not far from Chobareti. Rabati is a large mound surrounded by a fortification wall, which appears to have been established in the Late Bronze Age and reinforced in the medieval period.
