MEETiNG WiTh ThE OriGiNS OF hUMANKiNDintERnatiOnal cOOPERatiOn > Ekaterina GamkrelidzeIn the late 1970s, several friends from the Italian city of Rimini got together, having a desire to meet people from various religions and cultures and present the best works of art, culture and scientific achievements in Rimini. This is how the idea of the Rimini Meetings the meetings for the friendship amongst peoples was born in 1980.

national cultural forum. The event is suppor-ted by more than 200 partners and sponsors. One topic each year unites people's stories, presented in exhibitions, meetings, shows and sports events. The meeting is attended by up to 800,000 people and at least 20 natio-nalities. Events include around 130 meetings, 8 exhibitions, 35 shows and 10 sports events over a territory of 170,000 m2. At least 1000 accredited journalists cover the Rimini Mee-ting, which has become the starting point for similar annual events like the annual New York Encounter and the Cairo Meeting.

Seven people work to organize the Rimini Meeting with 4000 additional volunteers from Italy and other countries during the Meeting week to assist with setting up and dismantling exhibitions. Volunteers use their vacation time to work in Rimini; they submit an application one year earlier, without knowing what kind of work they will have to do. Only students of relevant specializations can work as excursion guides at the exhibitions, and they are pre-

pared by attending seminars on the relevant exhibition topics over the year preceding the Meeting. Despite the financial support recei-ved from sponsors, organizing such an enor-mous forum would be impossible without these volunteers. They work until midnight each day and despite this schedule, all of them are ready to use a week of their vacation time the following year.

The theme of the 2014 Rimini Meeting was To the Ends of the Earth and of Existence. Des-tiny Has Not Left Man Alone. At the initiative and under the curatorial supervision of archa-eologists Prof. Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati and Prof. Giorgio Buccellati in cooperation with the Ge-orgian National Museum, an exhibition was organized to show why humans unite into groups and how human society is formed.

The exhibition, entitled From the depths of time: the origins of communication and com-munity, illustrated the results of archaeologi-cal excavations underway at the Lower Paleo-lithic settlement in Dmanisi, southern Georgia

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for 30 years, during the last week of August, Rimini has become an inter-national center of culture under the aegis of the Catholic movement, Comunione e liberazione, where well-known scientists, Nobel Prize laureates, people of various reli-gions and cultures, famous political figures, artists, writers, musicians and sportsmen from all over the world gather at the largest inter-

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and in the city-state of Urkesh in south-eastern Syria. The exhibition consisted of three parts: Lower Paleolithic Period Dmanisi, Urban Revo-lution in the Urkesh Civilization and, Modern Syria.

The presentation event of the exhibition, led by Prof. Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati, Director of the Mozan/Urkesh archaeological project, held to a 3000-strong audience, was dedica-ted to the discussion of the exhibition topics. The General Director of the Georgian National Museum, Prof. David Lordkipanidze, delivered his presentation From the depths of time: the origins of communication and community; the President of the Georgian National Aca-demy of Sciences, Prof. Thomas Gamkrelidze spoke about the Previous Homeland and Mi-grations of Indo-European Tribes; Prof. Giorgio Buccellati (UCLA, US) presented the results of the excavations in Syria supervised by him and Prof. Kelly-Buccellati; and Prof. Paolo Matthiae (University of Rome, La Sapienza), Head of the archaeological excavations at Ebla City (nor-thwestern Syria), gave a talk about the origins of the first cities in the 3rd Millennium BC. The exhibition was very successful and was visited by 21,500 people during the week. 700 exhibi-tion catalogues were sold.

On the Rimini Meetings 2016 our coope-ration will continue with an exhibition about the Pre-Christian and Christian Georgia.