Editing Colchis (section)

=== Prehistory and earliest references ===
The eastern Black Sea region in antiquity was home to the well-developed [[Bronze Age]] culture known as the [[Colchian culture]], related to the neighbouring [[Koban culture]], that emerged toward the Middle [[Bronze Age]]. In at least some parts of Colchis, the process of urbanization seems to have been well advanced by the end of the second millennium BC. The Colchian Late [[Bronze Age]] (fifteenth to eighth century BC) saw the development of significant skill in the smelting and casting of metals.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Erb-Satullo |first1=Nathaniel L. |last2=Gilmour |first2=Brian J. J. |last3=Khakhutaishvili |first3=Nana |date=2014-09-01 |title=Late Bronze and Early Iron Age copper smelting technologies in the South Caucasus: the view from ancient Colchis c. 1500–600BC |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030544031400123X |journal=Journal of Archaeological Science |language=en |volume=49 |pages=147–159 |doi=10.1016/j.jas.2014.03.034 |bibcode=2014JArSc..49..147E |issn=0305-4403}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Erb-Satullo |first1=Nathaniel L. |last2=Gilmour |first2=Brian J. J. |last3=Khakhutaishvili |first3=Nana |date=2017-09-01 |title=Copper production landscapes of the South Caucasus |url=https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:93fceda7-681d-4c1b-aca6-45fc1e2f5d20/files/m028f70ecc5d88483efe8d939f5eee96b |journal=Journal of Anthropological Archaeology |language=en |volume=47 |pages=109–126 |doi=10.1016/j.jaa.2017.03.003 |issn=0278-4165}}</ref> Sophisticated farming implements were made, and fertile, well-watered lowlands and a mild climate promoted the growth of progressive agricultural techniques.{{citation needed|date=February 2017}}

The earliest attestations of the name of Colchis can be found in the 8th century Greek poet [[Eumelus of Corinth]] as {{Lang|grc|Κολχίδα}}<ref>Lordkipanidzé Otar, Mikéladzé Teimouraz. La Colchide aux VIIe-Ve siècles. Sources écrites antiques et archéologie. In: Le Pont-Euxin vu par les Grecs : sources écrites et archéologie. Symposium de Vani (Colchide), septembre-octobre 1987. Besançon : Université de Franche-Comté, 1990. pp. 167-187. (Annales littéraires de l'Université de Besançon, 427); https://www.persee.fr/doc/ista_0000-0000_1990_act_427_1_1252</ref> and earlier, in [[Urartu|Urartian]] records as {{Lang|xur-Latn|Qulḫa}} mentioned by the [[Urartu|Urartian]] kings, who conquered it in 744 or 743 BC before the Urartians and their territories were themselves conquered by the [[Neo-Assyrian Empire]].<ref name="Stanley Arthur Cook p. 350"/> Historian [[Askold Ivanchik]] states: “Based on cuneiform texts and archeological data, Qulḫa must have existed as an independent flourishing state during the second half of the eighth century BCE, but hardly survived the end of the century”.<ref>Valeriya Kozlovskaya, The Northern Black Sea in Antiquity: Networks, Connectivity, and Cultural Interactions. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017. xxvii; 366. ISBN 9781107019515 [https://www.google.com.ua/books/edition/The_Northern_Black_Sea_in_Antiquity/hcwnDwAAQBAJ?hl=ru&gbpv=1&dq=state+of+qulha&pg=PA15&printsec=frontcover]</ref>

According to [[Svante Cornell]], "What could be conceived as the proto Georgian statehood emerged mainly in the Western parts of today's Georgia, with the kingdom of Colchis (''Kolkheti'') in the sixth century BC."<ref name="Svante E. Cornell p. 130"/>

Colchis was inhabited by a number of tribes whose settlements lay along the shore of the Black Sea. Chief among those were the [[Machelones]], [[Heniochi]], [[Zydretae]], [[Egrisi|Lazi]], [[Chalybes]], [[Tibareni]]/[[Tubal]], [[Mossynoeci]], [[Macrones]], [[Meskheti|Moschi]], [[Marres]], [[Apsilae]], [[Kingdom of Abkhazia|Abasci]],<ref>According to some scholars, ancient tribes such as the [[Absilae]] (mentioned by Pliny, 1st century CE) and [[Abasgoi]] (mentioned by [[Arrian]], 2nd century CE) correspond to the modern [[Abkhazians]] (Chirikba, V., "On the etymology of the ethnonym apswa 'Abkhaz'", in ''The Annual of the Society for the Study of Caucasia'', 3, 13-18, Chicago, 1991; Hewitt, B. G., "The valid and non-valid application of philology to history", in ''Revue des Etudes Georgiennes et Caucasiennes'', 6-7, 1990-1991, 247-263; ''[[Grand Dictionnaire Encyclopédique Larousse]]'', tome 1, 1985, p. 20). However, this claim is controversial and no academic consensus has yet been reached. Other scholars suggest that these ethnonyms instead reflect a common regional origin, rather than emphasizing a distinct and separate ethnic and cultural identity in antiquity. For example, Tariel Putkaradze, a Georgian scholar, suggests, "In the 3rd-2nd millennia BC the [[Georgians|Kartvelian]], [[Abhaz]]-[[Abaza people|Abaza]], [[Circassians|Circassian-Adyghe]] and [[Vainakhs|Vaynakh]] tribes must have been part of a great [[Ibero-Caucasian]] [[Ethnic group|ethnos]]. Therefore, it is natural that several tribes or ethnoses descending from them have the names derived from a single stem. The Colchian Aphaz, Apsil, Apšil and north Caucasian Apsua, Abazaha, Abaza, existing in the 1st millennium, were the names denoting different tribes of a common origin. Some of these tribes (Apsils, Apshils) disappeared, others mingled with kindred tribes, and still others have survived to the present day." (Putkaradze, T. ''The Kartvelians'', 2005, translated by Irene Kutsia)</ref> [[Sanigs|Sanigae]], [[Coraxi]], [[Coli (tribe)|Coli]], [[Melanchlaeni]], [[Gelonians|Geloni]] and [[Svaneti|Soani (Suani)]]. The ancients assigned various origins to the tribes that inhabited Colchis.

[[Herodotus]] regarded the Colchians as "dark-skinned ({{Lang|grc|μελάγχροες}})<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://lsj.gr/wiki/%CE%BC%CE%B5%CE%BB%CE%AC%CE%B3%CF%87%CF%81%CE%BF%CE%BF%CF%82
|title = Liddell, Scott, Jones Ancient Greek Lexicon}}</ref> and woolly-haired" and calls them Egyptians.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hdt.+2.104&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0126|title = Herodotus, the Histories, Book 2, chapter 104}}</ref> [[Herodotus]] states that the Colchians, with the [[Ancient Egypt]]ians and the [[Ethiopia]]ns, were the first to practice [[circumcision]], a custom which he claims that the Colchians inherited from remnants of the army of [[Pharaoh]] [[Sesostris]] ([[Senusret III]]). Herodotus writes:

{{blockquote|For it is plain to see that the Colchians are Egyptians; and what I say, I myself noted before I heard it from others. When it occurred to me, I inquired of both peoples; and the Colchians remembered the Egyptians better than the Egyptians remembered the Colchians; the Egyptians said that they considered the Colchians part of Sesostris' army. I myself guessed it, partly because they are dark-skinned and woolly-haired; though that indeed counts for nothing, since other peoples are, too; but my better proof was that the Colchians and Egyptians and Ethiopians are the only nations that have from the first practised circumcision.}}

These claims have been widely rejected by modern historians. It is in doubt if Herodotus had ever been to Colchis or Egypt, and no Egyptian army ever set foot in the Caucasus, a region shielded by states to the south of the Caucasus too powerful for any Egyptian army to pass through, such as [[Urartu]], [[Hittites|Hittia]], [[Assyria]] and [[Mitanni]].{{sfnm|Fehling|1994|1p=13|Marincola|2001|2p=34}}

According to [[Pliny the Elder]]:

{{blockquote|The Colchians were governed by their own kings in the earliest ages, that Sesostris king of Egypt was overcome in [[Scythia]],<ref>''The Shrines and Sepulchres of the Old and New World: Records of Pilgrimages in Many Lands, and Researches Connected with the History of Places Remarkable for Memorials of the Dea, Or Monuments of a Sacred Character; Including Notices of the Funeral Customs of the Principal Nations, Ancient and Modern'', Volume 1, Richard Robert Madden, Newby, 1851, p.&nbsp;293</ref> and put to fight, by the king of Colchis, which if true, that the Colchians not only had kings in those times, but were a very powerful people.<ref>''An Universal History, From the Earliest Account of Time'', Volume 10, George Sale, George Psalmanazar, Archibald Bower, George Shelvocke, John Campbell, John Swinton, p.&nbsp;136 B.II.</ref><ref>Plin, I, xxxiii, c. 3.</ref>}}

Many modern theories suggest that the ancestors of the [[Laz people|Laz]]-[[Mingrelians]] constituted the dominant ethnic and cultural presence in the region in antiquity, and hence played a significant role in the ethnogenesis of the modern [[Georgians]].<ref>''Miniature Empires: A Historical Dictionary of the Newly Independent States'', James Minahan, p. 116</ref><ref>Cyril Toumanoff, ''Studies in Christian Caucasian History'', p 80</ref>

[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], a 1st-century BC Greek geographer, citing the poet Eumelos, assigned [[Aeëtes]], the mythological first king of Colchis, a Greek origin.<ref>Pausanias, ''Description of Greece'' (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160%3Abook%3D2)</ref>