doi: 10.2143/ANES.54.0.0000000 ANES 54 (2017) 183-212 Critical remarks on archaeological research in the 19th and 20th centuries on the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages in the Southern Caucasus Nourida GADIROVA-ATESHI Abstract This paper examines aspects of early archaeological research in the southern Caucasus, especially Azerbaijan, during the tsarist and Soviet periods. It argues that the imprint left by the early antiquaries was profound and Eurocentric, influencing later investigations. It also argues that these early collections, now mostly held in European museums, should be re-investigated in their own right and in light of recent archaeological discoveries. Research History and Historiography of the Caucasian Archaeology: The Early Years Problems in the research history and historiography of Caucasian archaeology related to the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages began to appear as early as 1829. While in work of the Soviet period, under the ruling ideology, the nature of these problems was obvious, they began to take new shapes after the fall of the Soviet Union. The history of Caucasian archaeology is thought to have begun in 1829, when a professor from Hessen, 28-year-old Friedrich Eduard Schulz (1799–1829), visited the Caucasus and voiced his views, and his interpretation of the archaeological data. Carl Ritter, the founder of modern his- torical geography had called the attention of Schulz, a philosopher and scholar of Oriental studies, to this field of research, with the promise of a reasonable chance of success in obtaining new scien- tific results. 1 The French supported Schulz financially and thus he was able to visit Turkey and Iran, including their Armenian regions, several times during 1828 and 1829. The Société Asiatique, a society of French scholars who had devoted their lives to the study of Asia, assisted Schulz in conducting his research in the city of Van in this period. While carrying out research with a German friend, Schulz’s focus on prehistory at Kelishin, a mountain village in northern Iraq, near the border with Iran at the Kelishin Pass, led to the dis- covery of the Kelishin Stele, with its famous and important cuneiform inscriptions in a Urartian- Assyrian bilingual text, dating to 800 BC. However, Schulz was perceived not only as a scientist 1 Lehmann-Haupt 1910, p. 6. 99578_Anes_54_2017_12_Gadirova-Ateshi.indd 183 2/02/17 07:54