Queen Ketevan of Georgia, the Indian connection, and 16 yrs of research

Hyderabad: Remember the 1965 Bollywood song ‘Gumnaam Hai Koi‘ which was shot inside the St Augustine Complex of Old Goa? The tune that leaves a haunted feeling, was shot at the location where a Georgian queen’s mortal remains were still buried. Half a century after the film ‘Gumnaam‘ was made, the remains were found after 16 years of search and 10 years of research, connecting the dots and unraveling an ancient mystery.

During a talk organised by Pleach India Foundation at the historic British Residency in the Veeranari Chakali Ilamma Women’s University in Koti on Friday, September 12, Dr Nizamuddin Taher, former director (world heritage), Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), explained how queen of Georgia Ketevan’s (1560 CE- 1624 CE) sacred bone relics were rediscovered in Goa in 2004.

Dr Nizamuddin, a native of Hyderabad, Shikha Ganguly, a research scholar at the time and Dr Nizamuddin’s wife, Sidh Mendiratta, an architect from Portugal, and Abhijit Ambekar, were part of the excavation since 2003, which was a continuation of excavations done at the site by their predecessors.

The story of Queen Ketevan

Princess Ketevan was born at Mukhrani in Portugal, and was married to Prince Davit, the future King David I of Kakheti in Georgia. Their marital life was cut-short due to Davit’s untimely death when her son Teimuraz I and daughter Elene were still children.

According to Dr Nizamuddin, Constantine I, the younger brother of Davit, who was influenced by the rulers of Persia, changed his faith and on the instructions of Shah Abbas I, the ruler of Persia, killed his father Alexander II and his brother Giorgi.

“Ketevan surrendered to Shah Abbas on condition that her son Teimuraz be allowed to be the ruler of northern part of Georgia, so that her people could be protected against conversion,” Dr Nizamuddin said.

He, however, cautions that these events shouldn’t be looked from the present-day perspective of religious conversions, but only in the historic context of those times.

Ketevan was held captive in Shiraz till September 22, 1624, when she was murdered in a gruesome way for refusing to stay in the harem and change her faith as ordered by Shah Abbas.

She was robed in festive attire and marched to a crowded square, where her persecutors subjected her to indescribable agony. They placed a red–hot copper cauldron (handi) on her head, cut out her breasts with heated tongs, pierced her body with glowing spears, tore off her fingernails, nailed a board to her spine, and finally split her forehead with a red hot spade.

Two priests who had come to meet her a year before her killing in Shiraz; exhumed her body, sent her head to the Vatican, and other bones to be preserved at the St Augustine Convent in Old Goa, which was ruled by the Portuguese in that period.

He cited a Portugal order that was passed in 1834 that the full property of churches will be confiscated.

“The religion was working up to Rome, but the administration was looking up to the ruler,” he said, observing lack of upkeep as the reason for the collapse of St Augustine Convent in 1842, where her remains were kept.

The excavation

Dr Nizamuddin said that it was in 1998 that the Georgian government had written a letter to the Indian embassy in Ukraine, informing that Ketevan’s remains were in that church, and requesting the Indian government to hand them over to Georgia.

Dr Nizamuddin notes that the efforts to find the remains were started by famous archaeologist and Padma Shri AK Sharma and his predecessors, who were sure of the remains being inside the St Augustine Complex, but couldn’t find them by then.

He explained how literary works from 1773, and the chronicles of the church helped his team come up with the exact layout of the church, and the churches within the church.

He said that the first breakthrough was achieved in 2003, when a tomb stone was found inside the Chapter Chapel, with the Coat of Arms and Portuguese inscription in Roman script. Her remains weren’t found there, but were found close to the second window of the church as mentioned in the literary works.

Most of her remains were found scattered in pieces under the rubble of the collapsed church, which was carefully removed by his team of around 100 workers who were engaged in the excavation work of the Archaeological Survey of India, where he was serving as the superintending archaeologist.

The crucial task was to determine that the three bones that were discovered did belong to Queen Ketevan.

DNA analysis proves the claim

Parts of the three bones were brought to the ancient DNA laboratory at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in Hyderabad to determine their genetic identity through mitochondrial DNA analysis.

One of the bones was an 18 cm long arm bone sampled as QKT1. The other two bone fragments couldn’t be identified.

The sequencing and genotyping the mitochondrial DNA revealed an unusual mtDNA haplogroup U1b, which was not found in India, but was found in Georgia. This corroborated with the archaeological and literary evidence.

However, because of Ketevan’s remains placed alongside the remains of two missionaries of the Augustine Convent, it was necessary to determine the sex and kind of bones. Additional tests conducted on the samples proved that the bones belonged to a Georgian woman.

Dr Nizamuddin got the findings published in an international journal called Mitochondrion, after which the discovery captured the global attention.

On July 9, 2021, Queen Ketevan’s remains were presented to the Georgian government and the patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Georgia by Union minister of external affairs S Jaishankar.

Stressing the need for documenting while conducting any excavation as a crucial aspect of research, Dr Nizamuddin said that the extraction, sequencing, amplification and matching the mitochondrion DNA by ensuring no contamination of the relics, has helped solve a historic riddle.

Underscoring the importance of archaeology in building relationships between countries, he said that the discovery of Queen Ketevan’s remains in Goa has only raised the stature of India in the hearts of the Georgians, for whom the queen’s remains held spiritual significance.