"“We have lent a huge amount of money to the U.S. Of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I am definitely a little worried.” "


Chinese premier Wen Jiabao 12th March 2009


""We have a financial system that is run by private shareholders, managed by private institutions, and we'd like to do our best to preserve that system."


Timothy Geithner US Secretary of the Treasury, previously President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.1/3/2009

Sunday, September 30, 2007

Vani - The Land of the Golden Fleece


Wine, Worship and Sacrifice: The Golden Graves of Ancient Vani

December 1, 2007–February 24, 2008 - Arthur M. Sackler Gallery - Smithsonian Institute New York

According to the Greek mythology, Colchis (Georgian: Kolkheti; Greek: Kolxis, kolґkIs) was a fabulously wealthy land situated on the mysterious periphery of the heroic world. Here in the sacred grove of the war god Ares, King Aeetes hung the Golden Fleece until it was seized by Jason and the Argonauts. Colchis was also the land where the mythological Prometheus was punished by being chained to a mountain while an eagle ate at his liver for revealing to humanity the secret of fire.

Less well known, however, is the archaeology of Colchis, with its intermingling of Greek, Persian, and local styles and traditions.

This unprecdented exhibition presents spectacular gold, silver, and ceramic vessels, jewelry, Greek bronze sculpture, Greek and Colchian coins, and Greek glassware. Together these artifacts form a rich and informative archaeological view of the ancient Asian country south of the Caucasus and its administrative center, in Western Georgia, Vani.

The exhibition features the contents of a grave found in Vani in 2004 containing elaborate Colchian gold hair-ornaments and appliqués for clothing; a Persian silver bucket, ladle, and libation bowls; Greek wine amphoras and red-figure pottery; and a Greek bronze torso. Additional highlights include Greek silver drinking cups of a kind that do did not survive in Greece itself (although they are well documented in the ancient sources); a magnificent Colchian gold necklace with thirty-one pendant tortoises, each decorated with tiny granulation; and a gold pectoral inlaid with carnelian and turquoise figures influenced by Egyptian, Greek, and Achaemenid jewellery.

In August 2007, the Georgian National Museum’s Otar Lordkipanidze Archeological Research Center discovered an exceptional treasure-trove of sacramental bronze objects, oil lamps, and statues dating from the Hellenistic period (2nd – 1st cc BC) at the archeological site of the ancient town of Vani. The objects are of exceptionally high artistic quality and are patterned with beautifully rendered mythological characters and animals. Experts believe this cache presents concrete evidence corroborating Vani’s existence as a templar city at the highest level of Colchian civilization and also prroves the Kingdom of Colchis’s strong ties with the rest of the world.

On September 1, 2007, US Ambassador to Georgia John F.Tefft, Mariella Tefft and PAO Cynthia Whittlesey were lucky enough to visit the Vani archeological site to see a recently unearthed sanctuary containing a number of unique sacramental objects. see pics.

7 comments:

Rory Winter said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
ziz said...

Patience.

There is more to the events on 25th October than might seem clear but are not.

Rory Winter said...

Am I relieved to hear that the matter is still being pursued! Up until now I feel like I've been promoting a lost cause with no one, it appears, taking up the campaign.

That is, except for Stef Zucconi.

Together with a small group in France I have been taking on these racist groups and we persuaded Google/Blogger to close down two of their blogs. But they keep springing up elsewhere no sooner are they shut down.

Although they appear to be a loose network we suspect there're bigger fish behind them. Daniel Pipes is one of our chief suspects and he feeds directly into the Bush government.

SIOE in England seems to have a strong Danish input and I wonder if they are in any way connected to Common Purpose?

I shall certainly look forward to anything you come up with. What concerns me is that if we are to put pressure on Livingstone and the GLA to ban this demo we had better move fast as there's less than four weeks to go.

Anonymous said...

Connection with Common Purpose? probably not. I was misled into asking that question after reading another article.

Rory

Anonymous said...

Errr.... for those of us who've clicked in here anticipating tales of brave Ulysses, what's going on?? Or has "Blogger" just blown its brains out??

ziz said...

The whole history of what we now have to call Abkhazia and Upper A. is related back to the very complex, racial, tribal, religious rivalry and history of the region.

So complicated that Greenwood in commentating on Georgia in the Rugby World Union said Georgia was the land of King Midas. He at least got the gold bit right but he came from Phrygia which is part of what we now call Turkey - he was of cours efmaous (allegedly) for Chrysopoeia or the transmutation of base metals to gold.

Greenwood (whose dad was a very handy scrum half)was good club winger who somehow ended up playing for England .. and provides the most banal commentaries (and that is a competitive field) possible with a vocabulary reduced to "massive", "huge" (applied to size of prop, game, kick, event and now we have "big ask"...

I trust(ed) that some might make the connection between the US Ambassadors visit, the way US Cultural services can be used to authenticate historical "realities" etc.,

It would of course be fascinating to see which of the NY glitterati / UN / Embassy circuit attend the opening night.

Sufficient to say that this tiny area is very significant to the future transport of Caspian oil and gas.

Apologies for what appears to be complicated but is actually very simple.

Anonymous said...

Small correction: The Vani exhibit that ran through February 2008 was at the Smithsonian Institution's Sackler Gallery of Art. It's in Washington, DC, not New York.

(C) Very Seriously Disorganised Criminals 2002/3/4/5/6/7/8/9 - copy anything you wish