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The history of ancient Caucasus is known to be mysterious, some early skulls have dated back 1.8 million years.

Background[]

In ancient times Caucasus, had been inhabited by a great number of different tribes, who spoke different languages, according to Strabo, at least 70. All that belonged to the human race, which had people in Western Asia and Europe.[1]

Known as Homo georgicus and were discovered in Dmanisi in souther Georgia. A jawbone neanderthal had been found in a cave at Azykh, Karabakh dated back over three hundred thousand years. A stone age culture existed in the area in 6000 BC, that was believed to have invented wine-making. Gobustan had rock engravings in Baku's southern part, going four thousand tears back. These all point to ancient settlement from ancient times.

The culture of the Persians has been found through Southern Caucasus, started from the sixth century BC, Persians had colonized parts of the region for nearly a thousand years, much longer than Russians did. The Armenian language has had many loan-words from the Persian language that at one point the Armenian language was thought to be Iranian and not a Indo-European language.

Greek Writers[]

In the early Greek writers, the Caucasus appears as the object of a dim and uncertain knowledge, which embraced little more than its name, and that vague notion of its position which they had also of other places about the region of the Euxine, and which they traced mythically to the Argonnutic expedition (Strab. xi. p. 505). In Aeschylus, it is the scene of the punishment of Prometheus, who is chained to a rock at the extremity of the range overhanging the sea, but at a considerable distance from the summit "the Caucasus itself, highest of mountains" (Aesch.Prom. Vinct. 719, comp.422, 89, 1088; Prom. Sol. Yr. 179, op. Cic. Quaest. Tusc. ii. 10; comp. Hygin. Fab. 54; Apollon. Rhod. ii. 1246, et seq.; Val. Flacc. v. 155, where the Caucasus is called Promethei cubile: Strab. iv. p. 183, xi. p. 505, who expressly asserts that the Caucasus was the easternmost mountain known to the earlier Greeks; and adds that it was, in later myths, the scene of expeditions of Heracles and Dionysus.)

Religion[]

Christiniaty has a strong affect in Pagan and Zorastrian. Cross stones famous to Armenians, or in Armenian prounciations Khachkars, are a fiery Zoroastrian sun-circle under the cross. Armenian king Trdat III, was said to be converted by Saint Gregory the Illuminator around 301 or 314. After Georgia became Christian in 372-32. Christianity tooker a stronger stance to both Georgian and Armenians when they had both devolped their alphabets in the fourth century. It helped them to write texts and scripts which were religious.

from the start, the church helped to create a seperate Armenian indetity and provide focus for the allegiance of the entire population that was independet of the polication famework and consequently from the fate of the realm. -Nina Garsoian, historian


References[]

  • The Caucasus: an introduction - Thomas de Waal
  • A new classical dictionary of Greek and Roman biography, mythology - By Sir William Smith, Charles Anthon
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