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86 THE EXPLORATION OF THE CAUCASUS
Georgians called it Stephans-zminda, or St. Stephen's.
This has been
one of the spots where a quantity of antiquities, probably of very
various dates, from prehistoric to Roman times, from the end of the
Iron Age almost to the present day, have been found. Many of
these curious objects, armlets, rings, knives, lance-heads, gold orna-
ments in the shape of bells or the horns of animals, ai'e figured
in M. Chantre's volumes. Near the church on the opposite hill.
ORNAMENTS FROM GRAVES IN OSSETIA
2000j feet above the station, other objects have been found, the
character of which, and possibly the name, Gergeti, of the nearest
hamlet, led M. Bayern, a Tiflis antiquary, to maintain this to
be the scene of the famous annual marriage of the Amazons
and GergeretiTe mentioned by Strabo.^ The evidence will, I think,
' M. Bayern was of much service to M. Chantre in his antiquarian researches, and
;M. Chantre has repaid the obligation by an appreciative memoir of this hard-working and
ill-recjuited student. M. Bayern was very successful as an excavator. Unfortunately he
suffered from the Bible on the brain, and located in the Caucasus the home of Abraham and
his descendants. See Gontriliutioii a I'arclK'olor/ie du Caucasc par F. Bayern, precedce d'une
introduction biographique, par M. Ernest Chantre. Lyon. Pitrat ain^, 1882.