Amazasp I ( ka, ამაზასპი) was a king of

Iberia The Iberian Peninsula (), ** * Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica'' ** ** * french: Péninsule Ibérique * mwl, Península Eibérica * eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, defi ...

(

Kartli Kartli ( ka, ქართლი ) is a historical region in central-to-eastern Georgia traversed by the river Mtkvari (Kura), on which Georgia's capital, Tbilisi, is situated. Known to the Classical authors as Iberia, Kartli played a crucial rol ...

, modern eastern

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

) whose reign is placed by the early medieval Georgian historical compendia in the 2nd century. Professor

Cyril Toumanoff Cyril Leo Toumanoff (russian: Кирилл Львович Туманов; 13 October 1913 – 4 February 1997) was a Russian-born Georgian historian and genealogist who mostly specialized in the history and genealogies of medieval Georgia, Armenia, ...

suggests 106–116 as the years of his reign, and considers him to be the son and successor of Mithridates I of Iberia who is known from epigraphic material as a

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

ally. Toumanoff also identifies him with the Amazaspus of the Stele of Vespasian and Xepharnuges of the Stele of Serapit. The name Amazasp derives from

Middle Persian Middle Persian or Pahlavi, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg () in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasanian Empire. For some time after the Sasanian collapse, Middle ...

''*Hamazāsp'', ultimately from

Old Persian Old Persian is one of the two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan language, Avestan) and is the ancestor of Middle Persian (the language of Sasanian Empire). Like other Old Iranian languages, it was known to its native ...

''Hamāzāspa''. Although the precise etymology of ''*Hamazāsp''/''Hamāzāspa'' remains unresolved, it may be explained through Avestan ''*hamāza-'', "colliding/clashing" + ''aspa-'', "horse" i.e. "one who possessed war steeds". The Georgian chronicles report Amazasp’s joint ten-year rule with Derok (Deruk) and record

Armazi Armazi ( ka, არმაზი) is a locale in Georgia, 4 km southwest of Mtskheta and 22 km northwest of Tbilisi. A part of historical Greater Mtskheta, it is a place where the ancient city of the same name and the original capital of the early ...

as his seat (whereas Derok’s residence was at Mtskheta). Many modern scholars, however, consider the Iberian

dyarchy Diarchy (from Greek , ''di-'', "double", and , ''-arkhía'', "ruled"),Occasionally misspelled ''dyarchy'', as in the ''Encyclopaedia Britannica'' article on the colonial British institution duarchy, or duumvirate (from Latin ', "the office of ...

a pure legend and argue that Amazasp was king in his own right.Rapp, Stephen H. (2003), ''Studies In Medieval Georgian Historiography: Early Texts And Eurasian Contexts'', p. 289. Peeters Publishers, .

References

2nd-century monarchs in Asia Pharnavazid kings of Iberia {{Georgia-royal-stub