Period of the disintegration of primitive communal relations among the population of Georgia

The most important tribal formation of possible proto-Georgians in the post-Hittite period was that of the Diauehi (Diauhi, Daiaeni), formed about the twelfth century B.C. southwest of Transcaucasia, in the region to the north of present-day Erzerum. The Diauehi coalition was powerful enough to resist attacks by Assyria, although in 1112 B.C. their king was captured by Tiglath-pileser I. In the ninth and early eighth centuries B.C., Diauehi was the nucleus around which many tribes of southern Transcaucasia gathered, and it was therefore the target not only of Assyria but also of the rulers of the newly emerging state of Urartu. In 845 B.C., Shalmaneser III of Assyria defeated King Arame of Urartu, and King Asia of the Diauehi became his vassal. Sometime in the early eighth century, both Menua and Argishti I of Urartu campaigned against the Diauehi, defeating their king, Utupurshini, and forcing him to pay tribute. The southernmost regions of the Diauehi were annexed by Urartu, and by the middle of the century the blows from Urartu in the east and from the tribes of western Georgia destroyed the Diauehi. This left the tribal formation of Colchis bordering directly on Urartu, and conflict soon developed between these two political coalitions» The eminent Soviet prehistorian, Igor Diakonov, believes that Georgian­speaking tribes were already in eastern Pontus (Colchis) in the ninth century B.C. Homer mentions the Halizones in Pontus, and it is supposed that this tribe is the same as the later Chalybes, a proto-Georgian tribe.

The fragility of the various “empires” of the eighth century became evident about 720 B.C. when nomadic peoples from the northern shore of the Black Sea, the Cimmerians, swept down the coast, passing through Colchis and into Urartu. About the same time, the Scythians poured through the Daryal Pass into central Georgia and down the western coast of the Caspian into Urartu. The Cimmerians destroyed the southern Colchian state, known as Kulkha in Urartian inscriptions. Whole regions were emptied of people as the Cimmerians moved south to Syria, Palestine, and the borders of Egypt. Some Mushki and Tibal, pushed aside by the Cimmerians, moved northeast into the Pontic regions, where by the fifth century they had made contact with Greek colonists. For a short time a distinct “kingdom of the Mushki” to the west, a state closely connected with the Phrygians, reigned as the strongest state in Asia Minor. Ruled by Mitas, whom some scholars identify with the legendary Midas of the golden touch, the kingdom of the Mushki had its capital at Gordion, and its people spoke Phrygian, an Indo-European lan­guage. The brief ascendancy of the Phrygian-Mushki state came to an end at the hands of the Cimmerians, who were probably allied with Rusa II of Urartu (685-645 B.C.). Some об the Mushki assimilated with local peoples, but others moved northwest out of the area known as Speri, taking with them their Hittite religion and culture.

By the Late Bronze Age, a period that in Caucasia included the end of the second millennium and the first centuries of the first millennium B.C., differentiations in wealth within the tribes are evident in the burial sites. Soviet scholars, including Melikishvili, argue that this “was the period of the disintegration of primitive communal relations among the population of Georgia” and the transition to “class society.” Following the linear scheme set out by Friedrich Engels in The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, Melikishvili proposes that primitive communal society was replaced by “military democracy” and firm alliances of tribes, which in turn may be seen as the beginning of the formation of a Georgian nationality. Tempting as this theoretical model of Georgian social evolution may be, it must be remembered that there is little available evidence to illuminate the social structure of the tribal societies of this ancient period. It is known that the proto-Georgian tribes (then centered in the Chorokhi basin north of Erzerum) and the proto-Armenian tribes (probably located to the south in the region bordering the Murad-su) were not under a central, unified politi­cal authority once the Cimmerians had swept through the area.

The second half of the seventh century B.C. marked the rise of significant political formations that can be identified with proto-Georgian tribes. Some of these tribes, living in the upper reaches of the Chorokhi River, were united under the name Sasperi. Based in the former territory of the Diauehi, the Sasperi had much of southern Transcaucasia under their sway by the early sixth ccntury and participated in the destruction of the Urartian empire, only to disintegrate under the expansionist thrusts of the Medes in the cast. The Sasperi merged with the Urartians in their lands, and, Melikishvili con­jectures, borrowed Urartian words that found their way into the Georgian language. At approximately the same time, a new “kingdom” of Colchis was formed in western Georgia, extending from the mouth of the Chorokhi northward but not reaching as far as the Caucasus Mountains. The political center of the kingdom of Egrisi, as it was known to eastern Georgians, was on the Rioni River. Greek migrants from Miletus settled in coastal towns at Trebizond, Kerasunt, Phasis, Dioskuri, and Pitiunt and traded with the native population.