K’ak’i (Kākhed, Kākhetābād): One More Georgian Coin-Minting Urban Cent

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K’ak’i (Kākhed, Kākhetābād): One More Georgian Coin-Minting Urban Cent

Journal Title: Pro Georgia. Journal of Kartvelological Studies - Year 2016, Vol 0, Issue 26

Abstract

Political fragmentation of Georgia in the 15th century was followed by at least partial disintegration of the national economic market, differentiated evolution and relative isolation of the economic processes in the newly established Georgian principalities. From numismatic point of view one has to note the conception of several new money minting centers, including the Zagami, the only urban and mint producing center of K’akheti we knew before. However, the new data demonstrated, that Zagami was not the only mint on the territory of the Kingdom of K’akheti. We have researched the location of the mint issuing silver and copper coins with the mint-name “Kākhed” and “Kākhetābād”. They shared the provenance (the majority of the specimens were found in Saingilo, south-eastern province of the 16th century historical K’akheti), and connection to the name of the Georgian province / kingdom of K’akheti (Kākhet or Qāketī of Safavid / Ottoman sources). Georgian sources have not preserved any indication of the city with this name. However, we encountered it in the notes of three foreigners: Nicolaes Witsen, a Dutchman, Jean Chardin, a Frenchman, and Evliya Çelebi, a Turk. We have also taken into consideration the contemporary documents and reports of the Russian ambassadors. As a result, we arrived to a quantity of more or less similar, or, better say, identical toponyms: medieval Georgian “K’ak’i”, and its Azerbaijani equivalent “Gakh”, and modern Georgian “K’akhi”; “Qāh” mentioned in the Ottoman offi cial document of 1607; “Kākh” mentioned in the mid-17th century Persian offi cial document; “K’akh” in the 1643 report of the Russian ambassadors; Nicolaes Witsen’s “Chekiti”; Jean Chardin’s “Caket”; Evliya Çelebi’s “Kākhet”; “Kākhed” and “Kākhetābād” mint-names indicated on the copper and silver coins being found in numbers in Saingilo. We have proved that all these proper nouns indicated the same settlement, the Georgian city of K’ak’i. Alexandre II, king of K’akheti was forced to cede K’ak’i to the emerging Elisu Sulṭānate, backed by ‘Abbās I, in 1604 (AH 1011/2). Since then the Sulṭānate and K’ak’i, its economic centre were seemingly controlled by ‘Alī-Sulṭān (Alibek II), who took sides alternately with the Ṣafavids and Ottomans. It is clear, that all the K’ak’i coinage after 1604 was de facto issued by the Elisu Sulṭānate, and not the Georgian kings of the Christian state of K’akheti. But we could consider with a reasonable degree of credibility that all the K’ak’i coinage before 1604 was de facto issued by the Kings of K’akheti, albeit de jure in the name of the Ṣafavid shāh or Ottoman sulṭān, or, in case of copper, sometimes in the form of the so called civic coinage. It is certain, that the de facto authority, emitting the coinage in K’ak’i was not always Georgian, but sometimes rather anti-Georgian. However, one has to take into consideration that K’ak’i has been located on the territory of Georgia, therefore, its monetary legacy has been a rightful part of the Georgian numismatic history. K’ak’i (i.e. “Kākhed” / “Kākhetābād”) constitutes a new, previously absolutely unknown Georgian mint, issuing money abundantly at least in the 16th century and the early 17th century. The K’ak’i coinage shall be considered a valuable addition to the current understanding of the Ṣafavid, Ottoman, and even Daghestani numismatic history too. The fact, that a major mint worked at K’ak’i, reveals much of the history of this Georgian city, and underlines the signifi cance and scale of this urban center in the epoch of general economic decline and de-urbanization in contemporary Georgia, albeit accompanied by a temporary and relatively short-lived but still economic prosperity of K’akheti. The neighbouring cities of Zagami / Bazari and K’ak’i constituted a powerful economic and money-issuing cluster in the south-eastern part of the contemporary Kingdom of K’akheti, oriented towards foreign trade. Our discovery with its historical implications bears a particular value for those researching / interested in the past of Georgia and Georgian nation: it sheds some more light on the complex relations between the east-Georgian kingdom of K’akheti, the Ṣafavids, the Ottomans, and the mountainous tribes of Daghestan in the 16th- early 17th century; the political (as well as economic and even toponymic) transformation of the then frontier area of K’akheti, and its gradual annexation by the Ts’akhurs, Avars and Qizilbash, initiated under the aegis of ‘Abbās I the Ṣafavid, and supported (when established in south-eastern areas of the Caucasus) by the Ottoman sulṭāns.

Authors and Affiliations

Irakli Paghava

Keywords

EP ID EP310223
DOI -
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