Plan of Earzii, Ingushetia

Source:  A. Robakidze, Zhilishcha i poselenija gornyx ingushej [Houses and settlements of the highland Ingush].  Kavkazskij ehtnograficheskij sbornik II: Ocherki ehtnografii gornoj ingushetii, 41-117.  Tbilisi: Mecniereba, 1968.  Plate 17.
    (Drawing credited to T. Gorgadze, 1963.)

The plan shows the town of Earzii which is also shown in the photograph on our homepage.  It is viewed from approximately the west (the photograph views it from the east).  The buildings in the town as well as the outlying fields and tombs are labeled for the clans they belonged to (legend, in Russian, at the bottom).

Earzii was a large and important highland town.  Its semilegendary foundation is attributed to the mythic number of nine great clans, and its name in the dialect of the nearby Khevsur highlanders of Georgia was Cxracixe ('nine towers').  In Ingush the name Earzii means 'eagle'; according to legend the town's founders followed an eagle to its nest in the forest and built the town there.  (Building at the site of a bird's nest is a standard element in highland town foundation traditions.  By now Earzii is surrounded by open fields, but the reference to forest in the foundation legend suggests that the land was originally forested and has been cleared.)

By historical times some of the original founding clans had split into two or three distinct clans, and the legend lists 15 clan names.  The towers with intact roofs labeled in the diagram, from left to right, belong to these clans:  (B) Joukur (one subclan);  (L) Aaldaga;  (A) Jaanda; (B) Joukur (another subclan).

The towers were important clan symbols and functioned as watchtowers and defense fortresses.  Each tower is surrounded by a set of two-story dwellings (which were less sturdily built and have survived less well).