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6.c. Piecing it All Together (Part of "Birth of the Samovar")
".... Unfortunately, we don't have the funding to do carbon dating on the objects to find out exactly how old they are. Instead, we compare them with similar items from other expeditions in order to estimate their age. If the shape, technology and ornamentation are the same, we determine that these objects were all from the same historical period.
In the case of the Shaki find, these objects look similar to ones that were found in Armenia and Georgia. These pots are believed to have come from a tribe of Kets that lived more than 3,600 years ago. At that time, this tribe was being formed in the Anadolu region of what is now Turkey. Perhaps there were trade relations or exchange between these tribespeople and other groups living in the Caucasus region.
In those other digs, only a few similar objects were found. In the Shaki mound, however, we unearthed many of them. This indicates that the vessels may not have been traded or exchanged; perhaps the tribe produced them on their own. It's possible that this Kets tribe had actually moved to the area now known as Shaki.
No matter who created this samovar, I believe it to be the oldest one ever found. It's very rare for any type of samovar to be found; to my knowledge, no others are as sophisticated or innovative as the one we found. It's just one of the many traces of ancient civilization that archaeologists often find in Azerbaijan."
Credits:
Tufan Akhundov holds a degree of Candidate of History (Azerbaijan's equivalent to a Ph.D.) and works at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of Azerbaijan's Academy of Sciences. He was interviewed by Farida Sadikhova of Azerbaijan International's staff. Tahir Amiraslanov also contributed to this article.
From Azerbaijan International (8.3) Autumn 2000.
Once more, for the complete article please go to
http://www.azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/83_folder/83_articles/83_samovar.html
Previous pages of this article:
6.a. The Discovery
6.b. Other Rare Finds
Or go back to revisit:
1. About the Samovar
2. Samovar Through History
3. Types of Samovars
4. Abbreviated history
5. Sbiten or Russian brew
6. Birth of the Samovar
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