Projects
Publications
Forthcoming
Meskhi A.,
Encounter after Millennia or the Story of the Bamiyan Manuscript. Three volumes. Volume I. Manuscript and Kartuli Asomtavruli Alphabet.
For summary click here
Mikeladze M. Sn.,
The Totem and the Old World. The Caucasus -The Mediterranean-The Pyrenees.
For reviews click here:
Review by Dr Meskhi A., President of CRKC.
In progress
Chkadua, A. Dictionary of Svan Place-Names. Dictionary of Svan Place-Names has been in the making since 2004, in collaboration with the A. Chikobava Institute of Linguistics. After almost 10 years of neglect the estimated time for publication is Summer 2007.
Pataridze R., The Kartuli Alphabet. The Kartuli Alphabet tells the story of the Georgian script which was created by Georgian priests based on the Hebrew alphabet and Chaldaean cuneiform writing in 444 B.C. The year (444 B.C.) also marks the end of the use of the lunar calendar in Georgia and the start of the epoch of the fixed solar calendar. The base date of the calendar is 540 B.C. – the final year of the existence of the Babylonian civilization.
The Georgian alphabet acquired the status of the state script in 284 B.C., a year later used as a cornerstone for the national Georgian calendar. In 311 A.D. the Georgian script was reinstated to its rightful official status after the dominance of Persian rule - a fact understood in Christian belief of the IV century as the resurrection of the Georgian language from the dead.
Future plans
Sumero-Kartvelian-English Electronic Dictionary.
The creation of the Sumero-Kartvelian-English Dictionary has been necessitated by the close linguistic affinities existing between the Sumerian and Kartvelian languages, encompassing all language strata - from sounds to phraseological units. Small wonder, then, that over 70 years ago, M. Tsereteli, a well-known Georgian Orientalist, wrote in his Sumeruli da Kartuli: "…and it is amazing, if one takes an Assyrian syllabary, the Sumerian phonetic equivalents of cuneiform signs sound like Georgian words" (Sumerian and Kartuli. In Gvirgvini, Tbilisi, 1912). It was the same author who submitted the two languages to a comparative linguistic examination and made the first lexicographic attempt comprising 140 items.
The evidence mentioned above, in conjunction with other scholars’ observations makes it necessary, as well as highly timely, to work on the creation of a Sumero-Kartvelian dictionary. Despite a lot of misgivings and skepticism among scholars, the Center for Research of Kartvelian Civilization is committed to making this happen and hopes that leading universities and individual scholars working in the field of Near Eastern Studies will provide the Center with necessary assistance.
