Okherakhevi (41°52’13” N, 44°31’23” E) is situated at the eastern border of the Shida Kartli province, at the border between the Kaspi and Mtskheta districts, between the villages of Nichbisi and Kvemo Khandaki. The site lies at an altitude of ca. 510 m a.s.l, on a flat area on the lower terrace of the Kura River located ca. fifteen meters above the present course of the latter (Fig. 1), at a distance of about 4.5 km in south-eastern direction from the Early Bronze Age settlement of Tsikhiagora, and ca. 1.6 km to the South of the Late Bronze site of Kvemo Khandakis Gora. The area was used as a burial field from the mid-3rd millennium BC to the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. Burials belong to the so-called kurgans (monumental funerary barrows belonging to tribal chiefs). Such burials, which required a huge work investment in the mound building and were often provided of very rich grave goods, testify the emergence in the region of a stratified society.

    During the 2010 field season, the Georgian-Italian team excavated two kurgans at Okherakhevi. Kurgan no. 1, of the Early Bronze Age (Bedeni culture), measured 10 x 4.50 m, and had a maximum height of 70 cm. It had the shape of an elongated oval, oriented in NW-SE direction (Fig. 2). The kurgan’s mound consisted of rounded and smooth pebbles and of larger slabs of whitish-greyish and yellowish sandstone. Numerous flakes of unworked obsidian were recovered from among the kurgan’s stones. A low overground chamber of squarish shape, oriented in NW-SE direction, was located approximately in the centre of the stone mound (Fig. 3). It contained a few badly preserved tiny fragments of human bones and two pottery vessels of Bedeni Fine ware (Fig. 4).

    Kurgan no. 2 was attributed to the Late Bronze/Early Iron Age. Its stone mound was 20-50 cm high, and measured 15 x 11 m (Fig. 5) It was composed for the most part of river pebbles of greyish colour, similar to those of kurgan no. 1, but generally of smaller size; a dozen fragments of obsidian and two fragments of red flint were recovered in-between the stones. A large 1.5 m deep pit of irregular hemispherical shape filled with different layers of stones was found in the central part of the stone mound (Fig. 6). Except for some small fragments of decomposed animal bones, nothing was found in the pit’s filling. Two small pits which cut the main one contained fragments of small-sized pottery vessels of the Late Bronze Age period. A third Late Bronze Age pit located at the NW periphery of the kurgan contained two smashed pottery jars with very typical Late Bronze Age combed/impressed decoration and scattered animal bones (Fig. 7).