LAPISLAZULI-FUNDE DES 3. UND 2. JAHRTAUSENDS V. CHR. IN DER KAUKASUSREGION-- EIN BEITRAG ZUR HERKUNFT DES LAPISLAZULI IN TROIA

Joni Apakidze

ABSTRACT
Lapis lazuli from the Caucasus is a topic of great interest when seen from the perspective of its means of reaching Troy.
Jewellery with lapis lazuli has been recovered in Bronze Age sites in the Caucasus as well, in specific: the Maikop kurgan, kurgan 1 in Novosvobodnaja (Carskaja), the hoard from Storomišastovsk (Maikop culture), and kurgan 17 in Trialeti (the Middle Bronze Age Trialeti culture). Nevertheless, it appears to date that lapis lazuli was used less than other semi-precious stones, such as carnelian.
While outcrops of lapis lazuli are not found in the Caucasus and in Anatolia, it does occur in Afghanistan (Badakhshan) and the Pamir region. Jewellery with lapis lazuli was plenteous in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Lapis lazuli must have been imported into Anatolia and the Caucasus, and a possible route might have been through Mesopotamia. Even more likely is that lapis lazuli , like tin, was transported from Afghanistan across the Turkmenian steppe and northern Persia to the Caucasus and Anatolia.
Presumably lapis lazuli was imported as a raw material for the production of "local" hemispherical or biconical, spherical or cylindrical beads or cultic axes in Maikop, Trialeti and Troy. In support of this the author draws attention to similarly shaped beads in the Caucasus, which are made of carnelian and other stones in the same technique. Likewise in Troy, comparable axes were made of nephrite, jade and other less costly stone material.

Studia Troica, Band 9 : 1999