New Investigations at Aradetis Orgora, a Multiperiod Centre in the Shida Kartli Region in Georgia

Aradetis Orgora is one of the most important archaeological sites in the Shida Kartli region of Georgia. Its main mound, Dedoplis Gora, was occupied from the late prehistory to the Early Medieval period, but is especially famous for a palatial building of the Late Hellenistic/Early Roman period, which is in course of excavation since the late 1980ies. In 2013, the investigation of the Hellenistic palace was joined, in the framework of a joint Georgian-Italian project by the Georgian National Museum and Ca' Foscari University of Venice, by two stratigraphical soundings aiming at highlighting the pre-classical sequence of occupation at the site, which amounts to more than 10 meters. The results of the first two seasons confirm the importance of the settlement during the Kura-Araxes period and since the second half of the second throughout the first mill. BC (Late Bronze and the Iron Ages), and suggest more sporadic occupation in the later part of the Early Bronze (Early Kurgan period), followed by a possible hiatus during the first half of the second mill. BC. Very important discoveries were also made in the Late Hellenistic-Early Roman palace. Three more rooms of this monumental building were excavated; one of them revealed a fire altar, on which several bronze and silver figurines of Greco-Roman divinities were found. The finds of the new excavations are summarily presented as far as they contribute to the reconstruction of the history of the site, and the importance of the latter as a regional centre in the different periods is also discussed.