The XXXVI International Scientific Symposium "Multidisciplinary Studies of the Turkish World" The 25 th of March 2023 ISBN: 978-605-72481-0-7 Eskishehir / Türkiye ---131---
Character carved next to the point (Tab. 3) is actually identical to Georgian Asomtavruli letter
sh and,
we think, in this place of the postament, its archaic grapheme is maintained. Below the mentioned character,
there is a short vertical line that does not look like any grapheme; we suppose that this is the charagma.
Along the supposed charagma, on the left side, there is a character (also the vertical line and its left
lateral line with the end twisted upwards) and, as we see it, is archaic Asomtavruli grapheme denoting Georgian
letter
h (it sounds like the Latin
hā / T
ab. 3). Academician
Ivane Javakhishvili demonstrated, with documentary
evidences, references to the historical sources that in Asomtavruli alphabet, in early epochs, letter
h was
expressed by the grapheme, which, later, became the other sound, so called
“e-merve” (“eighth e”)
(Javakhishvili, 199) (“eighth e” sounds as
ei ; and the name of the letter is the same
ei ; “e-merve” is so called
“informal” name). Doctor
Ramaz Pataridze also regarded that the grapheme currently denoting “e-merve”
earlier denoted sound
h . The mentioned grapheme, in his opinion, was transferred into Asomtavruli from
Phoenician alphabet. According to the researcher, in archaic Asomtavruli, this grapheme was oriented from
right to the left, i.e., the vertical line had horizontal one on the left side and later it was moved to the right side
(Pataridze, 189).
And next to the mentioned character, i.e., on its left side, as we see it, there is a monogram and we can
see the line, unifying the letters, the vertical line common for the graphemes of
