On Ancient Religious (Christian or Pagan) Ritual Lexical Units in Svan

I

Abstract

Offering up land to a deity or a saint was one of the important customs in Svaneti. The first information about these donated lands (to temples) was given by V. Bardaveladze as early as 1939. According to the author, a small piece of land called ლალცხ ტ was offered up to a saint by a family in order to prevent various kinds of accidents. A number of other scholars also paid attention to this issue and expressed a lot of interesting opinions (D. Pirtskhelani, J. Oniani, R. Gujejiani and others), however, the etymological analysis of this very important sacred term has not been done yet.