82 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 1 10 



Stratum in the South Caucasus with which we are concerned and has 

 been found near Karakurt in Kars Province of Nakhichevan and in 

 Shengavit near Yerevan. 



In making a stratigraphic study of the horizon with which we are 

 concerned, some help is afiforded by the short account by E. Lalaian 

 of the excavations during 1904 in Nakhichevan, of the ash mound of 

 Kul-Tepe with cultural level many meters in depth in which strata 

 containing painted pottery overlie a deposit with black ware. 



To this latter, supposedly, must be assigned three remarkable 

 vessels polished black, with hemispherical handles, narrow concave 

 bases and specific ornamentation, bearing witness to the absolutely 

 original artistic style inherent in this culture. A main characteristic 

 is the dynamism of the linear movement inside the externally balanced, 

 closed, curvilinear figures, executed concavely and convexly, and 

 with spiral tailpieces, adorning only the front of the body of the vessel, 

 while around the neck runs a cut-out belt of rhythmically recurring 

 rectilinear geometric elements. 



Lalaian did not pay due attention to these vessels nor did he dis- 

 tinguish a grave with a finely molded scoop and a goblet, of the shape 

 in question, from the usual Late Bronze and Early Iron Age tombs 

 discovered by him during 1905-1906 on the west bank of Lake Sevan. 



The first substantial material for judging the cultural layer char- 

 acterized by this ceramic complex is given by Lalaian's excavations 

 during 1927 on Eilar mound, where he found a cyclopean fortress 

 with an inscription of Argishti concerning the conquest of Darani. 

 In addition, Lalaian excavated during 191 3 Shresh-Blur tumulus at 

 Echmiadzin. 



Lalaian assigned the lower cultural strata of these two mounds to 

 the Neolithic period on the basis of a mistaken interpretation of the 

 stone querns, flaked pebbles, flint and obsidian flakes, and bone bod- 

 kins. This was in direct contrast to the rooted prejudice of reckoning 

 cultural life in the South Caucasus as beginning only from the Late 

 Bronze Age, immediately before the Urartian expansion. 



The pottery from the lower stratum of Eilar is relatively poorly 

 decorated, i.e., with bosses and hollows forming a kind of facial pattern 

 on one side of the body of the vessel, like that on the pitcher found 

 during 1869 in Zaglik. The molding and the shape of the vessels are 

 especially similar to the Igdir pottery, while at Shresh-Blur and Kul- 

 Tepe the designs are distinguished by one-sided but complicated 

 geometric compositions, symmetrically balanced, with the spiral tail- 

 pieces replaced by isolated concentric circles. This is particularly 

 clear when comparing them with the ornamentation, carried out in 



