Why Colchis?

"The wealth of the regions about Colchis, which is derived from the mines of gold, silver, iron and copper, suggests a reasonable motive for the expedition of Jason."

Strabo, Geographica, 1.2.39

Excavation at Vani, Georgia - Colchian city.  (Author's Collection. Copyright 2020)

    In today’s “age of reason”, we use science to explain our world.  In the previous world it was religion that explained how things worked and before that, it was myth that gave reason to our world.  

Strangely, even today, the Caucasus is a world of myth.

    Myths and legends carry a powerful message through time - how the tellers of these tales view themselves.  Every tribe under the sun has these stories - each rooted in a time too distant to remember and each of them fascinating.  Yet all of these legends have one thing in common - they stand the test of time.  We, as people, are inextricably bound to the past: it makes us what we are today and shapes what we will become tomorrow.  One could even say that without the past there would be no future.

Waterfront in Batumi, Georgia - eastern Black Sea (Author's Collection. Copyright 2020)

    Strabo describes the wealth of an ancient civilisation as the plausible impetus for one of history’s most enduring myths but perhaps the wealth described by Strabo above can be explained by an even older Georgian myth.

In the beginning, God created the Earth and all its people.  He then asked all the people to attend a gathering so that he may parcel out all the lands of the Earth to them for habitation.  On the appointed day, all the peoples of Earth gathered and received, from God, what we call today their ancestral homelands.  Conspicuously, one group of people was not present, but God went ahead and gave the lands out as gifts to those that were.  Once all the lands were dispersed and the people departed from the gathering, the one missing group arrived.  God said unto them, “My children, I’m sorry but you are late and no land is left to be given unto you as a home.  Where have you been?”  The group replied to God that they had been feasting and toasting God’s good name and his benevolence and, according to their traditions, could not stop the feast in order to attend his meeting.  They apologised profusely but re-iterated that they were late because their particular form of worship had deterred them from arriving on time.  So the Lord spoke to this group of people and said, “You are a genuine and pious people who deserve a good homeland, as such, I will give unto you the place on Earth I had reserved for myself: Georgia.

10th century AD (approx) ruins overlooking Rioni River 
from Bagrati Cathedral in Kutaisi, Georgia
(Author's collection. Copyright 2020)

    God’s reservation of Georgia as his own refuge could be an acceptable reason for us to believe in the incredible mineral wealth of the region and through time, this could have manifested itself in the great wealth of the empire of Colchis.  This empire on the eastern end of the Black Sea in today’s Georgia was the target of Jason and his boatload of adventuring heroes.

Colchian anthropomorphic figures in main sqaure fountain. Kutasisi, Georgia
(Author's collection. Copyright 2020)

Preparation Never Ends

For the last week, I've been studying a new topic and it has only gotten larger as I study harder.  Bear with me - I'll get there.

Feats of Engineering or Imposition of Will?

  Flying over the Rhine River last week I was struck by its size.  It is truly a massive obstacle, one that slowed the Allied advance into Germany only 70 years ago, despite their modern technology.  They were forced to be creative in their river-crossing techniques and even had to resort to boat crossings in some places.  

    Caesar writes that in 55 BC boat crossings were beneath him, so he had his field engineers build a forty foot wide wooden bridge across  the Rhine in ten days - including the time to fell the trees!  Scholars believe this crossing to have been accomplished somewhere between Andernach and Coblenz where, today, the river is between 250 and 300 metres wide.

Author's image of a drawing from Caesar I Gallic War, Loeb Classical Library, 1917.

     

    The Roman engineers devised a method of re-enforcing the supporting timbers using the strength of the river’s current while topping it with a paved road as well as building defences upstream to deter and defend from waterborne attacks.  Caesar doesn’t mention any attacks from the Suebi Tribe - whom he invaded Germania to subdue.  In fact, Caesar never engaged them in combat.  He conducted punitive raids against their villages and signed treaties with their enemies: demonstrating that the Rhine was not Rome’s northern border.  So after 18 days in Germania, Caesar decides his goals have been met, whence, he crosses his bridge back into Gaul and destroys it behind him.  

    It is this willingness to do the impossible which made Rome great.  Whether involved in 360 degree siege/counter-siege warfare - as was the case at Alesia - or imposing their will on rebellious natives; Roman technology, accompanied by Roman courage built the world’s largest empire to date.

    Looking at today’s bureaucracy riddled command structures one must wonder what an unencumbered will, like Caesar’s, might impose on a less committed foe.

Time and Patience: the Most Powerful Warriors. Conclusion

    Through all these examples we see that sky watching played a large part in the daily life of Ancestral Puebloans.  The only question is, why? Why was so much effort put into building these great houses with so much care and to such exacting standards?  Why were tens of thousands of trees brought from as far away as 100 kilometres (62 miles) without the aid of animals or the wheel?  Why does it seem the mid-twelfth century was a dividing line in Chacoan culture?  Remember, it was prior to 1150 that the south/southeast (S/SE) orientation was predominant in local architecture and after that cardinal alignment took precedence.  During this same fluorescence period calendrical stations seem to have become very important but they were typically located on sites important to their ancestors.  If that weren’t enough, it seems Chaco Canyon itself may have been occupied due to its alignment with the 19 year greater lunar standstill through its southern mesa topography.  

Tower kivas (gateways to new worlds) in Kin Kletso Great House (Author's collection, copyright 2019)

    This demonstrates the great value Ancestral Puebloans placed on commemorating the cycles of the sun and moon.  Chacoans built the azimuths of sun/moon rise and set, its mid-points and extremes into their architecture on micro and macro scales.  Over the centuries this reverence for time became heirophany and, therefore, impossible to ignore but not impossible to walk away from.

Clusters of kivas inside Pueblo Bonito (Author's collection, copyright 2019)

    All these deliberate activities help to integrate the canyon into a meaningful unification of heaven and earth - but this only brings us back to why.  Why go to all this trouble?  We can see the organised and predictable nature of  Chacoan worship and how it lent itself to creating large festival opportunities: most likely the backbone of a vibrant economy.  This economic well-being was probably based on the commerce created by the well planned arrival of pilgrims attracted to these rituals.  These markets and fairs would have been large enough to allow the Chacoan system to become a clearing house for not only a variety of goods, both foreign and domestic, but also ideas and ideologies, both political and social; all of which would have helped shape the Chacoan world.  This well-organised system would have created political stability for the Chacoan elite and so it was imperative that they remain relevant to their population in order to stay in power.  Its not hard to see that the introduction of new traditions and the physical changes associated with them may have been one manifestation of this quest for relevancy that we can see today.