Series |
Antiquity Studies
Volume 43 | Monograph | L’edilizia Kura-Araxes tra IV e III millennio: uno studio regionale
L’edilizia Kura-Araxes tra IV e III millennio: uno studio regionale
open access | peer reviewed
- Sebastiano Claut - Università degli Studi di Torino, Italia - email
Abstract
This volume presents a study of Kura-Araxes architecture in the Southern Caucasus, the cradle of the homonymous cultural phenomenon. Kura-Araxes communities, who emerged around the mid-fourth millennium BCE in the region, had a lasting impact and spread across a wide territory from northwestern Iran to eastern Anatolia, reaching the Levantine coast. A detailed analysis conducted over almost fifty settlements with more than three-hundred structures in the present states of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran and Turkey focused on building features and building techniques adopted by these communities for one thousand years. The study highlighted a very heterogeneous situation, characterised by the use of different building materials, building plans and building dimensions – as well as construction techniques – throughout the Southern Caucasus. In spite of these various ‘formal’ aspects, Kura-Araxes buildings share a common use of the internal space, essentially composed of one or, more rarely, two/three rooms. Internal installations, not homogeneously distributed, usually consist of hearths and benches. Almost all the analysed structures are residential units, with a few possible exceptions represented by ‘shrines’, platforms, ‘wall terraces’ and fortifications. Despite the great heterogeneity of the Kura-Araxes buildings, the study verified the presence of common and persistent architectural traditions in four geographical regions, namely the Kura valley, the Georgian-Armenian highlands, the Kvemo-Kartli mountains and the Araxes valley.
Keywords Edilizia Kura-Araxes • Kura-Araxes • Antico Bronzo • Tecniche costruttive • Caucaso Meridionale
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-914-6 | e-ISBN 978-88-6969-914-6 | Published June 24, 2025 | Accepted Jan. 13, 2025 | Submitted June 12, 2024 | Language it
Copyright © 2025 Sebastiano Claut. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
