A Middle Bronze Age culture with rich kurgans; the famous Trialeti gold goblet.
-2000
The Trialeti (Trialeti-Vanadzor) culture is a Middle Bronze Age culture of the South Caucasus, roughly the 22nd–15th centuries BC. It is named after the Trialeti plateau in southern Georgia.
It is known above all for the rich kurgan (barrow) burials of an elite: under the mounds were found wheeled carts, precious vessels, weapons and finely worked gold and silver cups, evidence of marked social stratification.
Its most famous find is the Trialeti gold goblet (18th–17th centuries BC), decorated with granulation and inset coloured stones; a silver cup bears a chased ritual procession of figures. Both are held in the Georgian National Museum.
The wealth of the burials and imported materials point to links between the South Caucasus and the Near East and the Aegean in the Bronze Age.