Cjss second Issue: cjss second Issue qxd

Apart from that a nation’s gastronomy also consists of factors such as
diet, provisions, food stuff (in different categories), culinary art, cookery and
fare. The choices of diet are thus complex and never static. It gets even more
complicated due to the fact that the factors mentioned above do not necessary
have the same meaning for all individuals in the same geographical area. All
these factors and contexts constitute the “homo gastronomicus” and can be
applied to any period in time (Söderlind 2005, p 21-47). 
Survey of the Field in Short
The research of food and beverage is a field that has been minor in gen-
eral amongst historians and archaeologist if one looks at it on a large scale.
However, that being said the field is not totally empty on scientific works re-
garding antiquity and the Middle age areas. Then most important works re-
garding the antique area have been written by Dalby, Andrew that writes
about the antient period in Greece and Imperium Romanun (Dalby, 1996,
2000), he has also written about food in the Byzantine Empire (Dalby, 2003).
Dalby is not the only scholar that has paid attention to the cuisine of antiquity,
worth mentioning in the field is also Grottenelli & Milano’s (2004) work on
the role food played for the identity of humans in antiquity, Garnsey’s work
(2002) on how food reflected the different social classes during the time,
Wilkins & Hill’s (2006) large and general work of what was eaten in Greece
and Rome and on the same theme of Alcock’s (2006) and Brothwell’s (1998)
works on distribution of food stuff as an overview in the classical world. On
the same topic but with a different angles are the works of  Faas (2003) and
Slater (1991) that deals with the actual eating and dining of the foodstuff.
The cuisine of the classical and antique area had a major impact on local
cuisines all over Europe during the Middle Ages which has been proved by
several researchers (Adamsson, 1995, 2002, 2004, van Winter, 2007, Scully,
2007, Redon, Odile, Sabban & Serventi, 1998, Bober, 1999, Elliot, 2004, Bhote,
2003). Very little has been done in Georgia in the field of food and beverages,
worth mentioning here is the work by Bukhrasvili (2002, 
p 33-36
) that deals
with food techniques of the central Transcaucasian populations of the mid- 3
rd
millennium B.C. 
Why study Georgia from a Culinary and Gastronomic Perspective?
Georgia (saqarTvelo, Sakartvelo) is a transcontinental country in the
Caucasus region, situated at the dividing line between Europe and Asia.
The
country’s geographical location with borders on the Black Sea, the modern
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Caucasus Journal of Social Sciences

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Russian Federation, Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, has meant that through
pre-history and history, it has been a crossroads between the West and the
East. 
Due to its location, the country has been invaded several times over the
course of history, for example, by the Greeks, Persians, and the Ottomans, to
name but a few. The invasions mean that much of the antique and Islamic
worldview still exists at the country’s borders—which is a ancient cultural
situation. The invasions have also left their footprints on Georgia’s food- and
drinking traditions and habits. This has resulted in the existence of many dif-
ferent gastronomical and culinary branches in the foodways of Georgia today. 
I am still in the early stages of the research on Georgia’s food and drink-
ing traditions and habits, Consequently, in this paper, I will concentrate on
some staple foods of Georgia, such as wine, bread, 
Khachapuri and Khinkali. 
Georgia was one of the earliest Christian countries in the world which
has attributed a certain role to wine in the transition from pre-history into the
Christian era. Wine still holds a very special place in the hearts and minds of
the Georgian people. I will thus deal first of all with wine in Georgian food-
ways.
Wine
The beginning of human civilizations is closely connected to the devel-
opment of agriculture and the history of cultivated plants, and Georgia played
a crucial role in this process. One of the reasons for that is that wine culture
in Georgia can be traced to early prehistoric times (Rusishvili 2007, p 5, 13).
The research of linguists such as T. Gamkrelidze and V. Ivanon indicates that
the root of the Indo-European term for ‘wine’ - u(e/o) iano which means wine
– have derived from the Georgian word Rvino [Rvino] (Gamkrelidze, 1984, p
647, 649-651). These linguists are of the opinion that the word would have
been transferred into the Proto-Indo-Europian language before this language
started to separate into its various branches in the fourth millenium B.C. The
separation transformed the word in different ways, leading to the English
‘wine’, Italian ‘wino’, and Russian ‘vino’, to give but a few examples (Gamkre-
lidze, 1984, p 649-651, Mcovern, 2003, P 33-34). 
The archaeological discovery of cultivated vines in Georgia supports the
linguistic theory of the origin of the word ‘wine’. Cultivated grape pips have
been found on the archaeological site ‘Shulaveris Gora’ (situated in the trans-
Caucasus region of modern Georgia). 
The site is dated to sixth – fourth millienium B.C. and belongs to the
Shulaveri-Shomu Tepe chalcolithic culture (
Kushnareva
, 
Chubinishvili
, 1970,
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p 170). Even if there is a large time span for the culture itself C14 (Radiocar-
bon dating is a radiometric dating method that uses (
14
C) to determine the
age of carbonaceous
materials up to about 60,000 years old)  
analyses of the
cultural layer where the pips were found gives a dating of 6625±210 years
millenium B.C (
Kushnareva and Chubinishvili, 1970,  p 170
). At other sites
belonging to the Shulaveri-Shomu Tepe culture a ceramic vessel which had
ornamentation in relief was found. The ornamentation appears to show
grapes and could very well be the earliest ‘label’  for grapes and wine that it
is known of today. In the vessel there was also found a sediment that  showed
that is consisted of too much wine residue after analysis (Hansen,  Mirt-
skhulava, Guram 2007, p 13-19, 
Chilashvili, 2004, p 47-9. Soltes, 1999, p 58-
59).
After the initial evidence of cultivated grapes and of wine-making. cul-
tivated grape pips were found in many other archaeological sites dating to
the Bronze Age, Antiquity, and the Middle Ages. This indicates a situation of
continuity in the cultivating grapes of Georgia (Rusishvili, 2007, p 13-35). It
is not until the Bronze Age that table grapes for eating are found which indi-
cates that humans in the earlier chalcolitic societies cultivated vines and
grapes for wine-making and not for eating. Wine was, therefore, the primary
reason why the vine was cultivated ( PhD, N. Rusishvili, personal communi-
cation, C
enter for Archaeological Studies of Georgia, Tbilisi,  2008-10-23).
It is not only grape pips that appear in the archaeological sites that can
be linked to wine. At a site belonging to the Trialeti Culture (third – second
millenium B.C.) a superb sample of toreutic art, a silver wine cup richly dec-
orated, was found. This cup has become known as the “Silver Cup Of Trialeti”
(
Kushnareva, and Chubinishvili, 1970
, p 16). There is ongoing debate about
what the scene depicted on the cup means. Some researchers state that it is
a depiction of the God Mithra surrounded by worshipers, and of the tree of
life. Others, however, are of the opinion that the depiction is that of the God
Mithra surrounded by hops and worshippers drinking haoma (
Kuftin,1941,
p 84, Jafaridze, 1981, p 15, , 2004, p 67-73.)
. Mithra means ‘contact’ or ‘pact’
and these terms are closely associated with a God known among the Persians
around 1200 B.C. Mithra was understood as a personification of the sun and
a God of justice. The God Mithra is often described as a forerunner of the God
Mithras who became known as a very important God in Greece and Rome
during Antiquity. The people of Georgia worked not only in silver during their
middle Bronze Age period; they also mastered the art of working in gold as
is evident from the discovery of a wine cup made of a gold sheet dating from
that period. The cup, which has a double wall and hollow legs, is richly deco-
rated with sardonic, lapis lazuli, red jasper, agate, and amber stones. The cup
is a stunning example of glass- pasted filigree work (
Japhardidze, 1981, p 52)
.
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Caucasus Journal of Social Sciences

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