Front Matter of the Volume 29

Boris Kuftin was a Soviet archaeologist and ethnographer. From 1933 to 1953, he worked in Tbilisi, Georgia. In the 1930s, he discovered the Trialeti culture; and in 1940, he coined the term Kura-Araxes. He participated in the South Turkmenistan Complex Archaeological Expedition in the 1940s-1950s.
Kuftin became a member of the Georgian National Academy of Sciences in 1946.

The ceramic vessels having archaic appearance have frequently been the misleading reason for dating the Bedeni monuments by earlier dates than they really are. The resemblance of Bedeni ceramics with that of earlier period can be explained by strengthening the relationships of eastern Georgia with western Georgia and northeastern Caucasus those were distinguished with their conservativeness. These relationships were the reason of reviving the archaic elements on the clay vessel from Bedeni culture settlements.

While working on materials preserved in the main depository of National Museum our attention was drawn on the double ax-shaped bronze pendant, which can come from the indistinct necropolis complex and may be dated by Middle Bronze Age. This opinion is based on the fact that we meet the mentioned bronze pendant in upper Racha ̶ Brili necropolis, from the Middle Bronze Age layer (Burial #12). The latest parallels of these items are on the monuments of Digori culture (West Mountain Region of the North Ossetia).