Divination and Sovereignty: The Late Bronze Age Shrines at Gegharot, Armenia
Divination and Sovereignty: The Late Bronze Age Shrines at Gegharot, Armenia
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占卜与主权：亚美尼亚格加洛特青铜时代晚期的神社
DOI：
10.3764/aja.118.4.0549
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发表时间：
2014
影响因子：
1.2
通讯作者：
J. F. Leon
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Adam Smith;J. F. Leon
青铜时代晚期(约公元前1500-1250年)的到来在亚美尼亚中部的茨卡霍维特平原上，在区域占领中断900年后，建立了一系列山顶堡垒。这些新的定居点证明了南高加索人政治传统的出现，其基础是彻底不平等的正规化、经济再分配的集中化做法和新的统治机构。然而，在主要要塞之一的格哈罗特发现了三个神殿和相关的集合体，这也表明占卜做法对地区主权的新兴原则至关重要。在这篇文章中，我们提出了在Gegharot神殿内的深奥仪式的证据--特别是骨化、石化和通灵，将它们置于高加索和邻近近东的可用比较范围内。我们进一步研究了占卜--一种减轻不稳定的现在和不确定的未来带来的风险的技术--如何提供对主权至关重要的关键权力来源。
The advent of the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1500–1250 B.C.E.) on the Tsaghkahovit Plain in central Armenia witnessed the establishment of a series of hilltop fortresses following a 900-year hiatus in regional occupation. These new settlements testify to the emergence of a South Caucasian political tradition founded on the regularization of radical inequality, centralizing practices of economic redistribution, and new institutions of rule. However, the discovery of three shrines and associated assemblages at Gegharot, one of the primary fortress sites, also suggests that divinatory practices were critical to the emergent principles of regional sovereignty. In this article, we present the evidence for esoteric rituals—particularly osteomancy, lithomancy, and aleuromancy—within the shrines at Gegharot, situating them within the available comparanda from the Caucasus and adjacent Near East. We further examine how divination—a technique for mitigating risks posed by unsettled presents and uncertain futures—provided a key source of power vital to sovereignty.