Ancient Georgia in the Near Eastern and Mediterranean world
The history of the country of Georgia belongs to the South Caucasus and its connections with surrounding regions. Begin with a map locating the Black Sea, eastern Georgian valleys, neighbouring Anatolia, Mesopotamia and the routes toward the Mediterranean. Distinguish western Colchis from eastern Kartli, also called Caucasian Iberia. This Iberia is not the Iberian Peninsula of Spain and Portugal. Geography helps explain trade, political contacts and military competition, but it does not make every later state boundary applicable to antiquity.
Evidence and early societies
The NAEC history programme includes the ancient Near East, Diauehi and Colcha/Colchis, Greece, Rome and ancient Georgian state formation. Learn to distinguish inscriptions, coins, archaeology, external written accounts and later chronicles. A royal inscription can establish what a ruler claimed, while its account of victory and tribute still needs critical comparison with other evidence. A coin find can support an investigation of exchange, chronology and authority; it does not prove that every inhabitant used the same language or traded directly with a distant mint.
Greece, Rome and the Caucasus
Study the Greek polis, Athenian institutions, Persian Wars, Alexander's campaigns and Hellenistic connections alongside Colchis and Kartli. In Greek mythology Colchis is associated with the Argonauts and the Golden Fleece. Identify this as a mythological association rather than archaeological proof of Jason's voyage. Roman expansion and rivalry with other regional powers brought the South Caucasus into wider diplomatic and military relationships. Different rulers could negotiate, resist or accept unequal relationships; avoid treating all contact as the same form of direct annexation.
Christianity and transformation
Christianization in fourth-century Kartli is a major historical development. Georgian Christian tradition associates Saint Nino with conversion, and Mtskheta has a central place in the country's religious history. UNESCO describes Mtskheta's monuments as evidence of important phases of Georgian ecclesiastical architecture. Separate the historical spread and institutional adoption of a religion from the miraculous elements of a later religious narrative. Such narratives are valuable sources for belief, memory and identity without requiring a historian to treat every episode as independently established fact.
Build an explanatory chronology
Place major developments in sequence and distinguish BCE from CE dates. Moving from a larger BCE year toward a smaller one moves forward in time. Organize revision around institutions, economy, religion, culture and external relations, not only monarch names. In a source response, identify the author, period, purpose and actual evidence, then explain what the source can and cannot establish. English foundation questions should be supplemented with Georgian historical terminology and the official source-analysis tasks for the intended assessment.