Aryan Kartli or Arian Kartli (meaning "

Iranian Iranian may refer to: * Iran, a sovereign state * Iranian peoples, the speakers of the Iranian languages. The term Iranic peoples is also used for this term to distinguish the pan ethnic term from Iranian, used for the people of Iran * Iranian lan ...

Kartli"; ka, არიან-ქართლი) was a country claimed by the medieval

Georgian Georgian may refer to: Common meanings * Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country) ** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group ** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians **Georgian scripts, three scrip ...

chronicle " The Conversion of Kartli" (მოქცევაჲ ქართლისაჲ, ''mokc'evay k'art'lisay'') to be the earlier homeland of the Georgians of

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 ...

The Georgian Chronicles ''The Georgian Chronicles'' is a conventional English name for the principal compendium of medieval Georgian historical texts, natively known as ''Kartlis Tskhovreba'' ( ka, ქართლის ცხოვრება), literally "Life of Ka ...

relate the apocryphal story of

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip II to ...

's campaign into inner Georgia. Alexander reportedly brought

Azoy Azo, Azoy or Azon ( ka, აზო; აზოჲ; აზონი) was a ruler of Georgians of ancient Kartli (Iberia of the Classical authors) claimed by medieval Georgian annals to have been installed by Alexander the Great, king of Macedon ( ...

(Azo), the son of the unnamed "king of Aryan-Kartli", together with followers, to Mtskheta, principal city of Kartli, and charged him with the administration of Kartli in his absence. The 11th-century Georgian monk Arsen, the author of metaphrastical reduction of "The life of St. Nino" and tutor of King

David IV of Georgia David IV, also known as David the Builder ( ka, დავით აღმაშენებელი, ') (1073–1125), of the Bagrationi dynasty, was the 5th king of United Georgia from 1089 until his death in 1125. Popularly considered to be ...

, comments on this passage: "We, Georgians, are descendants of the newcomers from Aryan-Kartli, we speak their language and all the kings of Kartli are descendants of their kings". Classical sources scholars have inferred that this land lay within the orbit of the

Achaemenid Persian Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest emp ...

Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society ...

' list of the Achaemenid provinces, which places the proto-Georgian tribes within the 13th and 19th

satrapies A satrap () was a governor of the provinces of the ancient Median and Achaemenid Empires and in several of their successors, such as in the Sasanian Empire and the Hellenistic empires. The satrap served as viceroy to the king, though with con ...

, is significant in this regard.Rapp (2003), p. 10. These territories partially correspond to the historical Georgian southwest where a number of Georgian scholars, notably

Giorgi Melikishvili Giorgi Melikishvili ( ka, გიორგი მელიქიშვილი; russian: Гео́ргий Алекса́ндрович Меликишви́ли; December 30, 1918 – March 27, 2002) was a Georgian historian known for his fundamenta ...

, tend to place Aryan Kartli. According to the modern historian Stephen H. Rapp, risen in the last phase of the Achaemenid Empire, Aryan Kartli was the first known autonomous kingdom in eastern Georgia. Even though prior to Aryan Kartli there had been small political entities in the western area's of Georgia, closer to the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Rom ...

(such as Egrisi/Colchis), it would be the polities to the east of the

Surami Pass The Surami Pass ( ka, სურამის უღელტეხილი) is a mountain pass in the Likhi Range of Georgia with an altitude of . The pass connects the western and eastern part of Georgia. A railroad (in a tunnel) runs throug ...

that "came to embody Georgian political life". Little is known about Aryan Kartli, however, according to Rapp, it appears to have been an "Achaemenid client on the northern fringe of Iranian domains". Rapp notes that Aryan Kartli "may well be associated with a remarkable palace built according to Achaemenid styles and techniques" at Gumbat'i in Kakheti in eastern Georgia. However, other locations have been proposed as well for Aryan Kartli, including to the southwest of Kartli, in the Armeno-Kartvelian marchlands. The early Georgian kingdom of Kartli/Iberia, which clearly emerges in historical accounts of

Hellenistic In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...

period, seems to have shared the Iranian bonds of Aryan Kartli.

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, ...

equates the region with the Aranē ( el, 'Αράνη) of

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importance ...

(V.6.18) and the Harrana of the

Hittites The Hittites () were an Anatolian people who played an important role in establishing first a kingdom in Kussara (before 1750 BC), then the Kanesh or Nesha kingdom (c. 1750–1650 BC), and next an empire centered on Hattusa in north-centra ...

.Toumanoff, Cyril (1963), ''Studies in Christian Caucasian History'', pp. 89-90. Georgetown University Press, cited in: Rapp (2003), p. 269.

Notes

References

Sources

*Rapp, Stephen H. (2003), ''Studies In Medieval Georgian Historiography: Early Texts And Eurasian Contexts''. Peeters Bvba . *{{cite encyclopedia , last1=Rapp , first1=Stephen H. , title=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History , entry=Georgia before the Mongols , date=2017 , doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.013.282 , isbn=9780190277727 *Kavtaradze, Giorgi L
Georgian Chronicles and the raison d'étre of the Iberian Kingdom (Caucasica II).
2009-10-25) ''Orbis Terrarum, Journal of Historical Geography of the Ancient World'' 6, 2000. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2001, pp. 177–237.

External links

Conversion of Kartli (in Georgian) The Georgian Chronicles (in Georgian)
Historiography of Georgia (country) Ancient history of Georgia (country) Achaemenid Empire