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Post-excavation photography of excavated tandir oven dating to the 13th century layers (AEB Project 2016)
Source publication
This paper presents the results of an archaeobotanical analysis of plant macro-remains recovered during excavations of a rural tepe site at Qaratepe, Azerbaijan, occupied during the Sasanian and Islamic periods between the 2nd and 13th centuries ad. The material derives from a 4 year Oxford University expedition which occurred between 2015 and 2018...
Citations
... But the caravan inn also supported more local trade and travel between the Ararat, Shirak and Lori regions. With a few exceptions (Kalantaryan et al. 2012;Smith et al. 2014;Hovsepyan 2017;Stone 2023), there has been almost no archaeobotanical work on medieval Armenia with the majority of archaeobotanical work in the Caucasus focusing on earlier, pre-historic periods of the archaeological sites in Armenia (Gandilian 1998;Hovsepyan and Willcox 2008;Wilkinson et al. 2012;Hovsepyan 2015;Manoukian et al. 2022). The primary aim of this paper builds on the project of the original excavations the Avs and A-Bc and seeks to develop our understanding of daily life in medieval villages and the role of these villages within the larger Silk Road system (Franklin et al. 2017;Franklin 2021). ...
... The identification of rice grains (Oryza sativa) at the A-Bc is intriguing as evidence for rice production/cultivation is rare in the Southern Caucasus. Previously, Asian rice (Oryza sativa) had only been securely identified in the Medieval Period (13th century) at the site of Qaratepe in Azerbajan (Stone 2023). Rice (Oryza sp.) has also been identified in mixed Chalcolithic/Medieval contexts in Armenia at the Areni-1 Cave site (Smith et al. 2014). ...
Archaeobotanical work in the Caucasus has focused on prehistoric sites, the advent of agriculture, and on large urban centres, while the Medieval and smaller, rural villages have remained understudied. This paper examines the archaeobotanical assemblages from two medieval archaeological sites associated with the Armenian village of Ambroyi (13th–14th c. ce). The Arai-Bazarjugh caravanserai (A-Bc) was a caravan inn, which hosted travellers of the Silk Road and was provisioned by local villagers. The Ambroyi village site (Avs) is a household complex 500 m to the west of the caravan inn. The paper tests if the provisioning relationship identified through the excavation and ceramics analysis of the village site and the caravanserai is representative of the provisioning of botanical material (food and fodder). The analysis suggests that the A-Bc was provisioned with Hordeum vulgare (barley) and Triticum aestivum/durum (wheat) in the form of fodder for animals and food for travellers, which was prepared in the village. A contrast is identified between the A-Bc and the Avs in the presence of arboreal crops and non-staple economic crops including Punica granatum (pomegranate), Phoenix sp. (date), Ficus sp. (fig), Gossypium sp. (cotton), Prunus cf. insititia/cerastifera (plum), and Vitis vinifera (grape) at the A-Bc and the absence of these crops at the Avs. This contrast suggests a unidirectional movement of plant material from the village site to the caravanserai, furthering our understanding of the agricultural economy of villages and caravanserais along the medieval Silk Road.
