bblestone, sometimes with mud bricks and wood. It had a smelter, squares with sacrificial altars, and tombs. Studies con-firmed that people who lived on the ter-ritory of Akhaltsikhe thousands of years ago farmed the land. Their metallurgy was highly developed, and metal items show unparalleled skill. The inhabitants of the area were also skilled at making clay and ceramic items often for ritual purposes today known as Meskhetian ceramics.

The excavations confirmed that humans have inhabited the territory of Javakheti sin-ce ancient times. The remains of numerous settlements, fortresses built with enormous boulders, and crypts dating back to early antiquity have since been discovered. Ja-vakheti is first mentioned in an inscription by the King of Urartu in 785 B.C. The city of Akhaltsikhe was in the fiefdom of Atabegs and, until the 1830s, it was the main city of the "Childiri" Kingdom. It was a settlement situated on extremely important trade rou-tes between South Caucasus and Western Asia. It is because of such a diverse cultu-ral history that Akhaltsikhe has an eclectic appearance, with both Eastern and Western influences. This lends greater interest to the artifacts found in the Samtskhe-Javakheti History Museum, which include jewelry, ri-tual goblets, glass vessels, clothes and rugs.

After the Ivane Javakhishvili Samtskhe--Javakheti History Museum had become part of the Georgian National Museum, reconstruction began, and many projects

ThE MUlTiCUlTUral hiSTOry OF ThE akhalTSikhE MUSEUM

region > Nino MegrelidzeThe very first museum in the city of Akhaltsikhe opened in 1880s, created by Ivane Gvaramadze. Historian, ethnographer and archaeologist, Gvaramadze published essays in the newspapers Iveria and Droeba, familiarizing the Georgian public with the problems and history of Samtskhe-Javakheti (also known as Meskheti). He carried out educational work among the Turkophone Meskhetians who lived there, and created a library and an elementary school in Akhalsikhe. For many years he collected historical items, and eventually opened a family museum in his home.

in 1921, items from his home, along with those from abandoned churches and monasteries, were included in exhibits in a regional museum created in Akhaltsikhe. The establishment had no time to become known, as it was soon closed down the exhibits were moved to the Simon Janashia State Museum in Tbilisi. The Akhalsikhe Museum reope-ned only in 1937, thanks to the son of Iva-ne Gvaramadze, Konstantine. The newly--founded museum was given the status of local history museum and its former exhibit items were returned.

In 1972, the Museum moved to buil-dings inside the historical Rabati For-tress, and efforts to enrich the museum's collections began. The Javakhishvili Samtskhe-Javakheti Museum of History, as it was called then, already had signi-ficant manuscripts, rare editions, photos, ethnographic samples and other histo-rical materials. However, archaeological excavations carried out in Samtskhe-Ja-vakheti beginning in the 1950s enriched not only the Museum's collections but considerably enhanced the historical sig-nificance of Akhaltsikhe in general.

Amiran's Hill, near Akhaltsikhe, is a mountain on the left bank of the Potskho-vi River, and on its southern slope the re-mains of a village were discovered during archaeological digs that started in 1953. Dating from the 3rd millennium B.C., the settlement was built using rock and co-

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have been implemented in Akhaltsikhe with the help from international orga-nizations and companies. One special initiative was implemented with the sup-port from BP and its partners. Collections were replenished by artifacts discovered during archaeological excavations carried out during the construction of the Baku--Ceyhan and South Caucasus Pipelines. The Museum was also equipped with a storage facility for archaeological collec-tions and a new exhibition was organized within the framework of the same project.

However, the most important changes for the museum began in 2011, when restoration and construction work star-ted in historical Rabat and the Museum's

exhibition halls were moved to a new building, called Jakelis Palace. The mu-seum re-opened in 2012 with a new name, new exhibits and international museographic standards.

The architectural project of the reno-vated building of the Ivane Javakhishvili Samtskhe-Jvakheti Museum of History was winner of the International competition Ar-chitectural Award 2012 in the Nomination of Restoration / Reconstruction (Author of the Project Gaga Kiknadze (Company: Archi-tects.ge Ltd.)), organized by the Association of Architects of Georgia, Architects' Club and STYLE Magazine.

Today called the Samtskhe-Javakheti History Museum, the creators tried to

preserve the historical appearance of the building and its surroundings. This is why architectural elements of the buil-ding window niches as well as arches of central walls are used as show-cases. The mostly-glass, transparent and almost invisible showcases seem to disappear in the space of the halls, drawing all atten-tion to the building and artifacts. Special lighting creates an impression that the exhibited items are suspended in air. The exhibition centers chronologically around the Meskhetian house. Some objects are exhibited in a showcase and others are not, which allows visitors to see them up close, providing an expe-rience of greater intimacy.

The exhibition offers a continuous, se-quential line of historical developments that occurred on the Meskhetian territory from ancient times until the 20th century. The modern, comfortable environment of the renovated Samtskhe-Javakheti History Museum provides a unique opportunity to see archaeological, ethnographic, paleon-tological, paleographic, numismatic, archi-tectural and other aspects of Meskhetian history. The exhibits show how each era was characterized by the coexistence of different cultures reflected in ancient lan-dscapes and the environment, traditions and rituals, elements of social structure and hierarchy, religions, advanced medie-val architecture and the literature of the Meskhetian territory.

renovated exposition of the samtkhe-Javakheti Museum of history

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