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Salvage excavations at Doghlauri cemetery

    In the course of the excavations at Aradetis Orgora, the joint Georgian-Italian team carried out the excavation of a grave (Grave 2016-1) at the neighbouring Aradetis Orgora (Doghlauri) cemetery which had been damaged by the building of the ballast of the new Tbilisi-Batumi highway (Fig. 21). When the team arrived on the spot, the grave had been severely damaged by a mechanical excavator, which had cut it into half. Smashed pottery vessels were visible in the artificial section (Fig. 22), and fragments thereof could be collected all around the cut. Only a corner of the grave, which was of Late Bronze date and was oriented in NW-SE direction, was still preserved (Figs 23, 24).
    The team proceeded to excavate what remained of the burial; unfortunately, no human bones were preserved, but fragments of six different, partially reconstructible pottery vessels could be recovered. These were apparently all of the same type (Fig. 25): small high-necked biconical jars of dark grey grit-tempered burnished ware decorated on the shoulder by wavy combed lines and groups of triangular impressions forming couples of elongated isosceles triangles.