The Huns, invading through Dariali Gorge on the modern-day border between Russia and Georgia in AD 395 and 515, spread terror across the late antique world. Was this the prelude to the apocalypse? Prophecies foresaw a future Hunnic onslaught, via the same mountain pass, bringing about the end of the world. Humanity’s fate depended on a gated barrier deep in Europe’s highest and most forbidding mountain chain.

Centuries before the emergence of such apocalyptic beliefs, the gorge had reached world fame. It was the target of a planned military expedition by the Emperor Nero. Chained to the dramatic sheer cliffs, framing the narrow passage, the mythical fire-thief Prometheus suffered severe punishment, his liver devoured by an eagle. It was known under multiple names, most commonly the Caspian or Alan Gates.

Featuring in the works of literary giants, no other mountain pass in the ancient and medieval world matches Dariali’s fame. Yet little was known about the materiality of this mythical place. A team of archaeologists has now shed much new light on the major gorge-blocking fort and a barrier wall on a steep rocky ridge further north. The walls still standing today were built around the time of the first major Hunnic invasion in the late fourth century – when the Caucasus defences feature increasingly prominently in negotiations between the Great Powers of Persia and Rome. In its endeavour to strongly fortify the strategic mountain pass through the Central Caucasus, the workforce erased most traces of earlier occupation. The Persian-built bastion saw heavy occupation for 600 years. Its multi-faith medieval garrison controlled Trans-Caucasian traffic. Everyday objects and human remains reveal harsh living conditions and close connections to the Muslim South, as well as the steppe world of the north. The Caspian Gates explains how a highly strategic rock has played a pivotal role in world history from Classical Antiquity into the twentieth century.

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Content
• Acknowledgements
• Section A: Preliminaries
  • Chapter 1. Introduction
    • 1.1. Summary
    • 1.2. Geography
    • 1.3. Site chronology
    • 1.4. Ethnic/political terms
    • 1.5. Technical notes
• Section B: Excavations and survey
  • Chapter 2. Late antique buildings occupied to the Late Middle Ages: life over one millennium on Dariali Fort (Trench F)
    • 2.1. Introduction
    • 2.2. The late antique fort walls and intramural life (late fourth to mid-seventh centuries AD/Phase 3)
    • 2.3. Mid-seventh/early eighth-century power vacuum (Phase 4)
    • 2.4. The early medieval zenith of activity (eighth to tenth/eleventh centuries AD/Phase 5)
    • 2.5. The late medieval Georgian castle and renewed activity between the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries AD (Phase 6b)
    • 2.6. Gunmen’s backyard: modern activity in the west of the fort (Phase 7b)
  • Chapter 3. Towering over the northern approaches: late antique buildings, medieval food storage and modern military (Trench Q)
    • 3.1. Introduction
    • 3.2. The late antique fort walls and intramural life (late fourth to mid-seventh centuries AD/Phase 3)
    • 3.3. The seventh to early eighth century: plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose: political upheaval and archaeological continuity (Phase 4)
    • 3.4. Resurgence: dry-stone building boom and life from the eighth to the tenth/eleventh centuries (Phase 5)
    • 3.5. A derelict backyard in the medieval castle (Phases 5b–6b)
    • 3.6. Attempting to halt Soviet aggression (Phase 7b)
  • Chapter 4. Barrier, bastion and aqueduct: sondages and surveys on and around Dariali Fort (Trenches L, X and O)
    • 4.1. A tower at the southern approaches to the Dariali Fort: Trench L (Phases 3–5)
    • 4.2. Buried beyond reach: in search of the earliest occupation debris at the base of Dariali Fort’s steep western cliffs: Trench X (Phases 5–7)
    • 4.3. A modern military shelter: Trench O (Phase 7b)
    • 4.4. A gated road-blocking wall west of the fort (Phases 3a–5b/c?)
    • 4.5. Vital water supply: piped water from the mountains above and staircase to the river below (Phase 3a–d?)
  • Chapter 5. Extramural areas south of the fort: two-and-a-half millennia of traffic and two millennia of food production in the shadow of the rock (Trenches P and M)
    • 5.1. Trench P: 2,500-year-old campfires to medieval gardening and modern shelters at the base of the tower-crowned rock (Phases 2a–7b)
    • 5.2. Extramural food production throughout the first millennium: Trench M (Phases 2b–5)
  • Chapter 6. Dariali early medieval cemetery (Trenches E, G and AB)
    • Eberhard W. Sauer, Anthi Tiliakou, Catherine Shupe, Annamaria Diana, Elena Kranioti and Konstantin Pitskhelauri
    • 6.1. Introduction
    • 6.2. Garden plots or arable fields? Pre-cemetery activity in the area of Trenches E, G and AB (Phases 2/3–5)
    • 6.3. Trench E: collective graves of the first phase (5a–b) of the cemetery
    • 6.4. Trench G: individual adult, adolescent and child graves of the cemetery’s later phase (5b–c)
    • 6.5. Trench AB: individual child graves of the cemetery’s later phase (5c)
    • 6.6. Burials beyond our trenches (Phase 5b–c)
    • 6.7. The chronology of the cemetery (Phase 5)
    • 6.8. The early medieval cemetery and the religion of the garrison (Phase 5)
    • 6.9. The early medieval cemetery, the ethnicity of the garrison and its connections to the outside world (Phase 5)
  • Chapter 7. The Caspian Gates? Bakht’ari fortified ridge: first line of defence and northernmost barrier (Trench Y/Phase 3)
  • Chapter 8. Medieval Gveleti Fort: valley-blocking cliff-top bastion and royal refuge from the Mongols (Trenches C, D, N, U, V and W)
    • 8.1. Introduction
    • 8.2. Living on top of the cliff-edge in early modern times: Trench C (Phase 7a)
    • 8.3. Trench D: early medieval to early modern occupation of Gveleti Fort (Phases 5–7a)
    • 8.4. Trench N: early modern housing next to the lower fort’s stone tower (Phase 7a)
    • 8.5. Trench U: activity at the approaches to the upper fort in the era of royal residency (Phase 6b)
    • 8.6. Trench V: medieval occupation south-west of the church (Phase 6a)
    • 8.7. Trench W: a late medieval stone house (Phase 6b)?
    • 8.8. The history of Gveleti Fort (Phases 5–7)
  • Chapter 9. Elusive migration-era burials and enigmatic stone cairns: fieldwork near Gveleti Cemetery and in the Amali Valley (Trenches A, B, H, I, J, K, R, S, T, Z and AA)
    • 9.1. In search of Gveleti Cemetery (Phases 3–7)
    • 9.2. The enigmatic Amali Cairns and the power of nature: Trenches Z and AA
  • Chapter 10. Landscape investigations in the Dariali Pass
    • Kristen Hopper, Dan Lawrence, Lisa Snape, Lana Chologauri, Seth M.N. Priestman, Lyudmila Shumilovskikh, Konstantin Pitskhelauri and Graham Philip
    • 10.1. Introduction
    • 10.2. Landscape investigations in Khevi
    • 10.3. The landscape survey in Khevi
    • 10.4. Archaeological and historical landscapes of Khevi
    • 10.5. Terrace field systems
    • 10.6. Discussion
    • 10.7. Dariali Pass Survey Site Gazetteer
    • 10.8. Sedimentary descriptions from terrace field investigations
• Section C: Specialist contributions: finds, building materials, biological and environmental evidence and scientific dating
  • Chapter 11. Provisioning and supply across an ancient frontier: the late antique and medieval ceramic sequence from the Dariali Gorge in the High Caucasus
    • Seth M.N. Priestman
    • 11.1. Introduction
    • 11.2. Phase distribution and changing assemblage composition
    • 11.3. Chronological development of the assemblage
    • 11.4. Other changes in assemblage composition
    • 11.5. Other assemblages
    • 11.6. Discussion
    • 11.7. Class catalogue
    • 11.8. Vessel types
    • 11.9. Petrographic analysis and raw material provenance
    • Enrica Bonato and Seth M.N. Priestman
    • 11.10. Residue analysis of cooking pots by GCMS
    • Ben Stern and Seth M.N. Priestman
    • 11.11. Context dating from ceramic finds
  • Chapter 12. Fragment of a ceramic vessel with an ancient Georgian inscription discovered at Dariali Fort
    • George Gagoshidze
  • Chapter 13. Vessel glass from the Dariali Fort
    • Fiona Anne Mowat
    • 13.1. The assemblage from Dariali
    • 13.2. Methodology
    • 13.3. Fabric classes
    • 13.4. Chemical analysis
    • 13.5. Site phasing and vessel circulation
    • 13.6. Glass recycling, cullet and trade at Dariali
    • 13.7. Descriptive catalogue by fabric type
    • 13.8. Conclusion
  • Chapter 14. Report of chemical compositional characterisation of glass fragments excavated from Dariali Fort (Georgia) by non-destructive X-ray fluorescence analysis
    • Yoshinari Abe and Ryuji Shikaku
    • 14.1. Materials and methods
    • 14.2. Results and discussion
    • 14.3. Conclusion
  • Chapter 15. The small objects and other finds
    • Lana Chologauri, Ana Gabunia, Fiona Anne Mowat, Seth M.N. Priestman, Eberhard W. Sauer and St John Simpson, with an appendix by Scott Stetkiewicz
    • 15.1. Introduction
    • 15.2. Finds from the Dariali and Gveleti Forts and extramural areas
    • 15.3. Finds from the cemetery
    • 15.4. Conclusion
    • 15.5. Appendix: Slag from the Dariali Fort
    • Scott Stetkiewicz
  • Chapter 16. The sword from Grave G9 in the cemetery south of Dariali Fort: analytical and technological study and assessment
    • Brian Gilmour
    • 16.1. Introduction and preliminary description
    • 16.2. Analysis and technology of the sword blade
    • 16.3. Discussion and conclusion
  • Chapter 17. Ceramic building materials from Dariali Fort
    • Seth M.N. Priestman
  • Chapter 18. Mortars from Dariali Fort and nearby fortifications
    • J. Riley Snyder and Martina Astolfi
    • 18.1. Introduction
    • 18.2. Materials and methods
    • 18.3. Results
    • 18.4. Discussion
    • 18.5. Conclusion
  • Chapter 19. Human skeletal remains
    • Anthi Tiliakou, Catherine Shupe, Elena Kranioti and Annamaria Diana
    • 19.1. Introduction
    • 19.2. Methodology
    • 19.3. Taphonomy and state of preservation
    • 19.4. Biological sex, age, ancestry and stature
    • 19.5. Non-metric traits
    • 19.6. Dentition
    • 19.7. Dental attrition
    • 19.8. Palaeopathology
    • 19.9. Dental Enamel Hypoplasia (DEH)
    • 19.10. Caries, Dental calculus, Periodontitis, Periapical cavities and Ante-mortem Tooth loss
    • 19.11. Osteoarthritis (OA)
    • 19.12. Periostitis/Chronic Periostitis
    • 19.13. Entheseal changes
    • 19.14. Trauma
    • 19.15. Conclusion
  • Chapter 20. Dariali Cemetery stable isotope analysis
    • Catriona Pickard
    • 20.1. Isotope analysis
    • 20.2. Materials and methods
    • 20.3. Results and discussion
    • 20.4. Conclusion
  • Chapter 21. Herding and hunting in the highlands from the Sasanian to late medieval periods
    • 21.1. The archaeozoology of the Dariali Gorge
    • Marjan Mashkour, Sarieh Amiri, Homa Fathi, Roya Khazaeli, Karyne Debue, Delphine Decruyenaere, Sanaz Beizaee Doost, Benoît Clavel, Safoora Kamjan, Rusudan Jajanidze and Eberhard W. Sauer
    • 21.2. Fish remains
    • Valentin Radu and Eberhard W. Sauer
    • 21.3. Microvertebrates
    • Emmanuelle Stoetzel, Lyudmila Shumilovskikh, Karyne Debue, Michel Lemoine and Marjan Mashkour
  • Chapter 22. Plant remains
    • Lyudmila Shumilovskikh and Imogen Poole
    • 22.1. Charcoal
    • Imogen Poole and Lyudmila Shumilovskikh
    • 22.2. Archaeobotany
    • Lyudmila Shumilovskikh
    • 22.3. Vegetation history
    • Lyudmila Shumilovskikh
  • Chapter 23. Archaeomagnetic studies of features excavated in Dariali Gorge
    • Cathy M. Batt, David P. Greenwood and Tehreem Kainaat
    • 23.1. Abstract
    • 23.2. Introduction
    • 23.3. Background
    • 23.4. Archaeomagnetic sampling in the field
    • 23.5. Archaeomagnetic measurements
    • 23.6. Results
    • 23.7. Interpretation of the archaeomagnetic results and comparison with the global geomagnetic field model
    • 23.8. Previous archaeomagnetic studies in the region
    • 23.9. Summary and conclusion
    • 23.10. Further work
  • Chapter 24. Luminescence dating and micromorphological assessment
    • Lisa Snape and Ian Bailiff
    • 24.1. Introduction
    • 24.2. Field observations
    • 24.3. Discussion
• Section D: History
  • Chapter 25. The history of the Dariali Gorge
    • 25.1. Prehistoric colonisation, Cimmerian invasion and the earliest visits to Dariali Rock (third millennium to third century BC/up to Phase 2a)
    • 25.2. From obscurity to world-fame: Iberians, Iranians and Romans in the Dariali Gorge (Phase 2b: second century BC to fourth century AD)
    • 25.3. The late antique fort (Phase 3)
    • 25.4. Power vacuum: mid-seventh century collapse of Sasanian rule to eighth-century Islamic conquest (Phase 4)
    • 25.5. The gates and their garrison in the Early Middle Ages (Phase 5)
    • 25.6. Abandonment and resurgence: Dariali and Gveleti Forts in the High and Late Middle Ages (Phase 6a–b: eleventh to late fourteenth or fifteenth centuries)
    • 25.7. End of the Middle Ages to Soviet Invasion: Dariali Gorge in the second half of the First Millennium (Phase 7)
• Section E: Appendices and Conclusion
  • Appendices. Landslides, the location of the gates and imperial landscapes: notes on historical geography
  • I A hostile environment: landslides and their effect on settlement patterns in the gorge
  • II Where were the gates? A French eyewitness to the narrowness of the gorge
  • III Investigations of ancient canal systems in Central and Eastern Georgia
  • Kristen Hopper, Dan Lawrence, Konstantin Pitskhelauri and Graham Philip
• Conclusion
• Acknowledgements & the history of the Dariali Gorge (in Georgian)/წინასიტყვაობა და დარიალის ხეობის ისტორია ანტიკურ ხანაში Abridged and translated by Davit Naskidashvili/დავით ნასყიდაშვილი
• Bibliography