Dealing with the
sources of the Khojaly-Gedebey culture (conservation, statistics, research methods)
brings us to another important problem.
Previously it was impossible to study the Khojaly-Gedebey culture systematically because many
artifacts belonging to it were scattered accross
museums in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russia, Germany,
Austria, and France.
The chronology of the Khojaly-Gedebey culture should also be reviewed.
According to the latest research, the following chronology of monuments belonging to the
Khojaly-Gedebey culture is proposed:
6
MBA-LBA (Transitional period)
15
th
century BCE
LBA I (Early stage)
14
th
-13
th
centuries BCE
LBA II (Development stage)
12
th
-11
th
centuries BCE
LBA III (Final stage, initial use of iron)
10
th
-9
th
centuries BCE
Iron Age (Widespread use of iron)
8
th
-7
th
centuries BCE
But the most important problem is historiography.
The historiography of the Khojaly-Gedebey Culture: ideological approaches, distortions, and
research problems.
The research history of the Khojaly-Gedebey Culture can be tentatively divided into three
chronological periods:
1.) the middle of the 19
th
century until the 1920s;
2.) the 1920s-1980s (Soviet Period)
3.) the 1990s until the 2010s (Post-Soviet Period).
This historiography covers the geographic regions of Europe, Russia (or the USSR) and the southern
Caucasus (mainly in the Post-Soviet Period).
When looking at the historiography of the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages in the Southern Caucasus
written in the last 185 years in German, Russian and Azerbaijani it becomes quite
obvious that there
are several historiographies of the same period.
Until today many German scientists consider Virchow’s, Bayern’s and Belck’s publications a basis for
their own work. Without scrutinizing the erroneous information given by them is used for statements
and publications. This becomes quite obvious when we have a close look at some catalogues of
museums and exhibitions. Here are four examples from Germany:
1.
"Early hill tribes in Armenia and the Caucasus - Berlin investigations of the 19th century”
by K. Kohlmeyer and G. Saherwal
7
2.
Kalakent. In 1985 W. Nagel and E. Strommenger published a catalogue
“Kalakent” which is listing the finds and the majority of the original letters written by Belck
to Virchow
8
This book, however, was translated into Azerbaijani in 1999 thus multiplying the errors.
The Azerbaijani version is not only incorrect in substance, it is also filled with coarse
.
6
Hüseynova 2011,p. 20.
7
Kohlmeyer and Saherwal,1983.
8
Nagel and Strommenger 1985.
270
grammatical and transcription errors; whereas other parts were not
translated correctly, a
great deal had been changed, distorted, twisted and fabricated
9
3.
The most recent exhibition with exhibits from the Caucasus opened in 2008 in the Berlin
Museum of Ethnology with the title
"Azerbaijan - Land of Fire.
History and Culture in the
Caucasus"
.
10
4. Another example is the exhibition “
The Silver Horse - Archaeological Treasures between
the Black Sea and The Caucasus”
.
11
Unfortunately in this catalogue the authors preferred to rely upon the old outdated interpretations
without critical analyses or corrective notes. So it is full of historical, archaeological, and geographical
errors.
, in which the Berlin Museum of Prehistory
and early History once
again presented investigations of the Caucasus collection.
Many German colleagues referred to these outdated interpretations until 2011. German and
Azerbaijani colleagues reproduced the “facts” stated therein and created a scientific “truth” by
repeating them time and again. After the publication of the catalogue on Kalakent these hypotheses
and assertions have been reiterated in new dissertations.
Results
Since its beginning in 1829, the Caucasian archaeology has gathered a lot of problems. The
Khojaly-Gedebey culture in particular is a research gap in the investigations of the Late Bronze and
Early Iron Ages. Its geographic range, its genesis and its chronology are not sufficiently investigated
yet. The conservation of the monuments, statistics, and research methods must be reviewed. When
analyzing the original reports of archaeological
excavations, it became known that a lot of artifacts
discovered in the region of the southern Caucasus are not available in any local museum. It was
noted that these materials are being held in museums in Europe, especially in Russia, France, and
Germany. Most collections belonging to this culture are held in museums outside Azerbaijan as well
and could not be completely investigated to date. Mainly we find these materials in the following
museums: State Historical Museum and Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, Hermitage
Museum
in St Petersburg, Georgian National Museum in Tbilisi, Museum of Natural History in
Vienna, Museum of Prehistory
and Early History in Berlin , National Museum of Archaeology in Saint
Germain-en-Laye near Paris.
Discussion
All the above mentioned problems should be discussed in an open atmosphere by an international
team of scientists who could find well founded answers to these questions. Since 2009, the author
has been investigating the collections and finds belonging to the Khojaly-Gedebey culture in many
museums in Baku, Tbilisi, Moscow, St Petersburg, Berlin, and Vienna. She has pointed
out specific
problems and made concrete proposals to solve them. Now she brings up the investigations of the
Khojaly-Gedebey culture made so far for international discussion and invites the scientific community
to co-operate with her.
References
9
Nagel and Strommenger 1999.
10
Schindelbeck 2008.
11
Wemhoff and Kokowski 2011.
271