Archaeological excavations of three sections of the inner areas of the fort of Apsaros were conducted by the Gonio-Apsaros archaeological expedition of the Cultural Heritage Preservation Agency of Adjara in 2014. Remains of several buildings were unearthed in the Roman cultural levels. Artifacts from these layers reflect a Roman presence in the area from the second half of the 1st to the end of the 3rd century AD....
The Roman fort of Apsaros in Gonio (Adjara, Georgia) still holds answers to many issues connected with the Roman military presence on the Chorokhi river in ancient Colchis. In 2014, a Polish team joined the Georgian expedition to carry out excavation in two sectors directly east of the centrally located principia. The sites were chosen based on a study of the results of geophysical prospection carried out in 2012. Two phases, dated to the early and late Roman periods respectively, were recorded. The early Roman architecture was interpreted as part of the installations and structures of a large bathhouse (
balneae
), including a mosaic floor in one of the rooms. The building was destroyed at least twice, most likely in a catastrophic fire. The article discusses the stratigraphy and the dating of the early Roman
balneae
based on glass artifacts and coins....
Karasiewicz-Szczypiorski, Radosław; Mamuladze, Shota; Aslanischvili, Lasha; Daszkiewicz, Małgorzata(Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean, 2018)
The article collects the modest information on the use (and
possible production) of ceramic building material by the Roman army in
Colchis, using it as a backdrop for presenting the exceptional richness, in
quantity as much as diversity, of finds from Gonio/Apsaros. They are made
even more exceptional by the signatures found on these products. The article
presents documented examples of stamps on bricks, roof tiles and ceramic
pipes from the fort and links them with construction project of specific Roman
army units in the Cappadocia province. The results of laboratory tests
conducted on samples of ceramic products and raw clay from Gonio,
presented in Part 2, are an important element of the presented analysis.
Based on these results, it has been possible to distinguish two reference
groups for the production of which clay from near the fort was used.
However, it has not been possible to indicate the specific deposits of such
raw material used by the Roman army....
Karasiewicz-Szczypiorski, Radosław; Mamuladze, Shota(PRO GEORGIA JOURNAL OF KARTVELOLOGICAL STUDIES, 2019)
In 2018, the Polish-Georgian Gonio-Apsaros Expedition under the supervision of
the authors of this text continued research into the issue of the early presence of a Roman
garrison at the mouth of the Chorokhi River. Two narrow trenches were opened
along the road located north of the late Roman and Byzantine fortifications. Places
were selected in which traces of earlier fortifications were expected to be found. The
foundations of defensive walls were discovered in both survey trenches. It came as
some surprise that in both cases the remains of two lines of walls had been preserved.
The analysis of the architectural relicts and the accompanying layers enables stating
that these are the traces of two different construction phases which did not occur simultaneously.
The earlier fortifications (wall A) can most probably be linked to the fort’s
inner structures from Phase 1, among which the recently discovered granary (horreum)
can be included. The later defensive wall (wall B) was probably constructed at the
same time as the buildings classified as belonging to Phase 2. These same fortifications
most probably continued to be in use along with the buildings considered to be part
of Phase 3. Garrison bathhouse (balneum) were built in place of the above-mentioned
grain storage building during Phase 2, while the commander’s house (praetorium) was
erected during Phase 3....