Zoomorphic Sculpture from Georgia (South Caucasus) c.800-650 BCE: this sculpture was originally equipped with multiple heads on opposite ends of a four-legged body
This artifact was unearthed from the central terrace at Vani, which is located in what is now western Georgia (the country, not the state). It was created roughly 2,800 years ago, when Vani served as the religious, cultural, and administrative center for the Kingdom of Colchis.
The sculpture was originally designed with six heads, but only two of those heads remain intact. Each head is depicted with a large crown and zoomorphic features.
Above: the full-sized sculpture
Several other sculptures with this design have been discovered at Vani, and the same motif also appears at the nearby site of Nokalakevi.
Above: a similar sculpture from Vani
As this article explains:
Numerous terracotta figurines of various animals occur at Vani (e.g. deer, rams, etc.) but particularly interesting are four-footed figures with multiple heads on opposite ends. The protomes of two-headed and three-headed fantastical creatures with characteristic post-like legs apparently belong to figures of this type.
Above: two-headed protome from Vani
Similar designs can also be found in artifacts from ancient Greece:
Such figures, also common in the Greek world and generally assigned to the geometric period, have been found in 8th-7th century [BCE] contexts at Olympia, Delphi, Athens, Crete, Rhodes, Samos, and elsewhere. In Italy, these figures frequently appear in 7th-6th century contexts. Although at present a firm decision on which culture influenced the Vani figures (four-footed with two heads on opposite ends) is difficult to discern, the earlier emergence and wide distribution of such representations in the Greek world suggest a link with Hellenic culture.
Perhaps these new elements in Colchian culture c.800-650 BCE resulted from Greek contacts (still intermittent) in the precolonial era, which were reflected in the great popularity of stories of the Argonauts in the 8th-7th centuries and in the first geographical and ethno-political reports of Colchis (e.g. geographical references in the Homeric Catalogue of the Trojans, mention of Colchis in Eumelos and of the Phasis River in Hesiod). Regular Greek contacts began only c.550 BCE, after the establishment of Greek settlements on the eastern shore of the Black Sea.
Above: another two-headed protome from Vani
Journal of Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies: Vani: an Ancient City of Colchis (PDF)
The Georgian National Museum: Figurine of a Fantastical Beast
Phasis: New Discoveries in Colchis (PDF)
