A classification of footwear-shaped vessels in the South Caucasus based on the specimen from Khovle Gora, Georgia

Abstract During archaeological excavations at Khovle Gora, in Georgia, in the early 1960s, a remarkable artefact was discovered in the form of a footwear-shaped vessel. The vessel strongly resembles an authentic leather boot, not only due to its colour, which results from a reducing firing process, and its smooth, polished surface, but also because of its decorative elements that imitate stitching. While this particular object, unearthed at level V of Khovle Gora, is a unique find both in Shida Kartli and in the wider context of Georgia, it belongs to a widespread tradition of footwear-shaped ceramic vessels, whose presence has been documented in settlements and burial contexts across Anatolia, the South Caucasus, Northern and Northwest Iran, and Mesopotamia since at least the Late Chalcolithic period. From a cultural perspective, the pottery found alongside the footwear-shaped vessel at Khovle Gora shows typical features of East Georgian pottery of the ninth-to-seventh centuries BC, implying a chronological placement within this time period. This article examines the morphology of the vessel, which incorporates typical elements of ancient, traditionally inherited elements of South Caucasian footwear, while also highlighting its differences from contemporaneous Urartian footwear-shaped vessels.