RICERCA ITALIANA     

Research program

LANGUAGE, RITUALS AND SYMBOLICS OF SOVEREIGNTY FROM ARMENIA TO THE MEDITERRANEAN COASTS. CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY

University Co-ordinator

Università degli Studi di LECCE - FILOLOGIA CLASSICA E SCIENZE FILOSOFICHE - LECCE(LE)

Research Unit Leader

Giusto TRAINA

Description

During the period 2005/2007, the Lecce unit will work on two programs, coordinated by Prof. Traina and concerning :

1) A comprehensive study of sources and bibliography on the Armenian kingship (II BCE-XIV CE), with a special focus on the historical, historico-cultural and iconographical. Greek and Latin sources will be studied by G. Traina and B. Tisé, while the specialists of Armenian (Traina, Ferrari, De Siena) will start the collection of a database with the lemmatization of the Armenian historiographers, with special attention to the terms of kingship and power. Missions will be made for the acquisition of data from manuscripts (Yerevan, Venice, Paris, Vienna), and from specialized bibliography (Rome, Yerevan, Paris, ouvain-la-Neuve), At the end of this research will be published one or more thematic monographs with the results of the research and some essays in depth. Parallel to this research will be studied the historiography on the ideological grounds of modern studies on Armenian kingship (Traina, Ferrari).
Another group of archaeologists and art historians (Falla, Khachatryan, Petrosyan, Vardanyan) will work on the iconography of kings and of the royal characters in figurative Armenian arts (sculpture, painting, illumination, numismatics) from Antiquity to Middle Ages. A diacronic research will be led on the evoution of the image of the king and of his prerogatives in Armenian art, with a special attention paid to Persian and Byzantine influences. For this particular aspect of the research the Lecce and Ravenna units will work together.In order to optimize the course of the research, the Armenian and Russian bibliography will be filed and digest-processed by a graduate researcher.

2) Archaeological research (topography and excavations) on the ancient region of Ayrarat.
A group of historians and archaeologists (Traina, Khachatryan, Petrosyan, a graduate researcher)will work on the historical topography of the region. Going on with the survey of the Azat valley, the group will prepare a database of the sites, working especially on the problems of royal property in ancient and medieval Armenia, from Artaxata to the monastery of Geghard..
The basis of the mission is the house of the Institute of Archaeology in Artaxata, where the laboratories of drawing and conservation are also located. The bases of Garni and Dvin will be also employed.
The research will include: the systematic filing and processing of the sites, with registration of digital images ; the collection of the existing plans, and the surveying of the newly found sites ; the study of the road-system in ancient and medieval times ; the examination of archaeological and architectural data ; possible archaeological essays to precise chronological problems ; a typological study of the material culture ; the collection of historical cartography and of the archive iconographic material ; the collection of literary and epigraphical sources, and of the manuscript sources on local history ; the execution of latex copies of the most significant inscriptions.
Excavations will be carried out in the ancient royal residence of Artaxata. According to the schedule established with the responsible of the excavations of Artaxata, Dr Zhores Khachatryan, the Lecce unit (Traina, a graduate researcher) will continue the exploration of the low city of Artaxata, together with the Institute of Archaeology of the Armenian Academy of Sciences (Khachatryan, Petrosyan, Kanetsyan).
The interventions will concern the area of the low city, in the frontier zone along the embankment of the Araks river (run by the CIS Army) controllata dalle forze armate della C.S.I.), with the prosecution of the excavation of a thermal and possibly sacred complex, where in the former campaigns have been found important materials with iconographical motives concerned with royal ideology (see Khachatryan, in press).