Colchis

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(Redirected from Kolkhida Lowland)

Kingdom of Colchis
Kingdom

c. 13th century BC164

BC

Colchis and Iberia

Capital

Aia
Ildamusa
Phasis

Languages

Colchian language

Government

Monarchy

Historical era

Iron age

Established

c. 13th century BC

Conquest of Diauehi

750 BC

Disestablished

164 BC

Today part of

Georgia
Turkey

Russia

Colchis and Iberia in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC

Central and southern parts of Colchis, 3rd to 1st centuries BC - 1st century AD

Colchis between the Black andCaspian Seas. London, 1529

History of Georgia

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Ancient history[show]

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Early modern history[show]

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History of Georgia

In Greco-Roman geography, Colchis (/

klks/; Georgian: Kolkheti; GreekKolkhis, presumably
from Kartvelian kolkhetior kolkha) was the name for a region in the Southern Caucasus. Colchis
was located on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, centered on present-day western Georgia.
Around the 1st centuries BC and AD the land south of the Greater Caucasus and north of
the Lesser Caucasus was divided between Kolchis in the west, Caucasian Iberia in the center
and Caucasian Albania in the east. To the southwest was Armenia and to the
southeast Atropatene.
The Colchians were the population native to Colchis. They are assumed to have been
earlyKartvelian-speaking tribes, ancestral to the contemporary groups
of Svans, Mingrelians andLazs.[1] Ancestors of the Colchians were probably established on the
Black Sea coast from as early as the Middle Bronze Age.[2]
For centuries, until its annexation by Kingdom of Pontus in 164 BC, Colchis was an independent
kingdom. This kingdom has been described in modern scholarship as "the earliest Georgian
formation".[3] Colchis (also known in late Antiquity as Lazica, or Egrisi) would later contribute
significantly to the development of medieval Georgian statehood, alongside Iberia.[4][5]
Colchis is also an important land in Greco-Roman mythology, most notably as the kingdom
of Medea and the Golden fleece, destination of the Argonauts.