Moschia (Meskheti, possibly related to Mushki) is a mountainous region of Georgia between Iberia, Armenia, and Colchis. The Moschian Mountains were the connecting chain between the Caucasus and Anti-Taurus Mountains. The people of that area were known as the Moschi. They may have been connected to the Mushki.
Wilhelm Gesenius suggested that the Moschi were descended from the Biblical Meshech tribe.
Strabo mentions the Moschian Mountains as joining the Caucasus (Geography, 11.2.1). He says that the Moschian country lay above the rivers Phasis, Glaucus, and Hippus (Geography, 11.2.17). In it "lies the temple of Leucothea, founded by Phrixus, and the oracle of Phrixus, where a ram is never sacrificed; it was once rich, but it was robbed in our time by Pharnaces, and a little later by Mithridates of Pergamum." (ibid).
According to the renowned scholar of the Caucasian studies Cyril Toumanoff, the Moschians were the early proto-Georgian tribes which were integrated into the first early Georgian state of Iberia. [1]
Mushki are mentioned in the cuneiform tablets of Tiglath-Pileser I of Assyria dating to 1115–1100 B.C. He led a campaign against them in the North of Commagene and mountains of Georgia and Armenia. According to Igor Diakonoff, the Mushki possibly were speakers of Proto-Armenian, who carried their language from the Balkans across Asia Minor, mixing with Hurrians (and Urartians) and Luwians along the way. [2] However, the connection between the Mushki and Armenian languages is quite unclear and many modern scholars have rejected a direct linguistic relationship. [3] [4] [5] [6] Additionally, genetic research does not support significant admixture into the Armenian nation after 1200 BCE, making the Mushki, if they indeed migrated from a Balkan or western Anatolian homeland during or after the Bronze Age Collapse, unlikely candidates for the Proto-Armenians. [7] [8] However, as others have placed (at least the Eastern) Mushki or Meskhi homeland in South Caucasus region mostly speaking Georgian language as their native.
Medieval maps mention with Moschi region Armenian and Iberian parts. [9]
In Greco-Roman geography, Iberia was an exonym for the Georgian kingdom of Kartli, known after its core province, which during Classical Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages was a significant monarchy in the Caucasus, either as an independent state or as a dependent of larger empires, notably the Sassanid and Roman empires. Iberia, centered on present-day Eastern Georgia, was bordered by Colchis in the west, Caucasian Albania in the east and Armenia in the south.
The Georgians, or Kartvelians, are a nation and indigenous Caucasian ethnic group native to Georgia and the South Caucasus. Georgian diaspora communities are also present throughout Russia, Turkey, Greece, Iran, Ukraine, United States, and European Union.
The Kingdom of the Iberians was a medieval Georgian monarchy under the Bagrationi dynasty which emerged circa 888 AD, succeeding the Principality of Iberia, in historical region of Tao-Klarjeti, or upper Iberia in north-eastern Turkey as well parts of modern southwestern Georgia, that stretched from the Iberian gates in the south and to the Lesser Caucasus in the north.
Mirian III was a king of Iberia or Kartli (Georgia), contemporaneous to the Roman emperor Constantine the Great. He was the founder of the royal Chosroid dynasty.
The Mushki were an Iron Age people of Anatolia who appear in sources from Assyria but not from the Hittites. Several authors have connected them with the Moschoi (Μόσχοι) of Greek sources and the Georgian tribe of the Meskhi. Josephus Flavius identified the Moschoi with the Biblical Meshech. Two different groups are called Muški in Assyrian sources, one from the 12th to the 9th centuries BC near the confluence of the Arsanias and the Euphrates and the other from the 8th to the 7th centuries BC in Cappadocia and Cilicia. Assyrian sources clearly identify the Western Mushki with the Phrygians, but later Greek sources then distinguish between the Phrygians and the Moschoi.
Samtskhe–Javakheti is a region (mkhare) in southern Georgia with a population of 151.110 (2021) and an area of 6,413 km2 (2,476 sq mi). The region has Akhaltsikhe as its administrative center, while Besik Amiranashvili is governor of the region since August 2018. Samtskhe–Javakheti is compiled of the historical Georgian provinces Meskheti, Javakheti and Tori.
Vakhtang I Gorgasali, of the Chosroid dynasty, was a king of Iberia, natively known as Kartli in the second half of the 5th and first quarter of the 6th century.
Javakheti or Javakhk is a historical province in southern Georgia, corresponding to the modern municipalities of Akhalkalaki, Aspindza (partly), Ninotsminda, and partly to the Turkey's Ardahan Province. Historically, Javakheti's borders were defined by the Kura River (Mtkvari) to the west, and the Shavsheti, Samsari and Nialiskuri mountains to the north, south and east, respectively. The principal economic activities in this region are subsistence agriculture, particularly potatoes and raising livestock.
Cyril Leo Toumanoff was a Russian-born Georgian historian and genealogist who mostly specialized in the history and genealogies of medieval Georgia, Armenia, Iran and the Byzantine Empire. His works have significantly influenced the Western scholarship of the medieval Caucasus.
Meskhians are an ethnographic subgroup of Georgians who speak the Meskhetian dialect of the Georgian language, which among Georgia's regional dialects is relatively close to official Georgian. Meskhetians are the indigenous population of Meskheti, a historical region in southern Georgia. Today they are mainly followers of Georgian Orthodox Church, while part of them are Catholics.
The origin of the Armenians is a topic concerned with the emergence of the Armenian people and the country called Armenia. The earliest universally accepted reference to the people and the country dates back to the 6th century BC Behistun Inscription, followed by several Greek fragments and books. The earliest known reference to a geopolitical entity where Armenians originated from is dated to the 13th century BC as Uruatri in Old Assyrian. Historians and Armenologists have speculated about the earlier origin of the Armenian people, but no consensus has been achieved as of yet. Genetic studies show that Armenian people are indigenous to historical Armenia, showing little to no signs of admixture since around the 13th century BC.
Proto-Armenian is the earlier, unattested stage of the Armenian language which has been reconstructed by linguists. As Armenian is the only known language of its branch of the Indo-European languages, the comparative method cannot be used to reconstruct its earlier stages. Instead, a combination of internal and external reconstruction, by reconstructions of Proto-Indo-European and other branches, has allowed linguists to piece together the earlier history of Armenian.
The Chosroid dynasty, also known as the Iberian Mihranids, were a dynasty of the kings and later the presiding princes of the early Georgian state of Iberia from the 4th to the 9th centuries. The family, of Iranian Mihranid origin, accepted Christianity as their official religion c. 337, and maneuvered between the Byzantine Empire and Sassanid Iran to retain a degree of independence. After the abolition of the Iberian kingship by the Sassanids c. 580, the dynasty survived in its two closely related, but sometimes competing princely branches—the elder Chosroid and the younger Guaramid—down to the early ninth century when they were succeeded by the Georgian Bagratids on the throne of Iberia.
The Armeno-Phrygians are a hypothetical people of West Asia during the Bronze Age, the Bronze Age collapse, and its aftermath. They would be the common ancestors of both Phrygians and Proto-Armenians. In turn, Armeno-Phrygians would be the descendants of the Graeco-Phrygians, common ancestors of Greeks, Phrygians, and also of Armenians.
Arab rule in Georgia, natively known as Araboba refers to the period in the History of Georgia when all or part of the country was under political domination of Muslim Arab rulers, from the first Arab incursions in the mid-7th century until the final defeat of the Emirate of Tbilisi at the hands of King David IV in 1122. Compared with other regions which endured Muslim conquests, Georgia's culture, and even political structure was not much affected by the Arab presence, as the people kept their faith, the nobles their fiefdoms, and the foreign rulers mostly insisted on the payment of tribute, which they could not always enforce. Still, repeated invasions and military campaigns by the Arabs devastated Georgia on many occasions, and the Caliphs retained suzerainty over large parts of the country and exerted influence over the internal power dynamics during most of the period.
Varsken was an Iranian prince from the Mihranid family of Gugark, or Lower Kartli in Georgia, who served as the bidaxsh (margrave) of the region from 470 to 482. He was the son and successor of Arshusha II.
Sagdukht was a 5th-century queen consort of Iberia, natively known as Kartli in eastern Georgia, as wife of King Mirdat V. She was a daughter of Barzabod, a Mihranid ruler of Gardman.