Public Lectures 2006

Georgia: Meeting Point of Ancient West and East
Gocha Tsetskhladze, University of Melbourne
26 October 2006

Transcaucasian Georgia is situated at the crossroads of West and East. The material culture of ancient Georgia - Colchis (eastern Georgia ) and Iberia (western Georgia ) - bears witness to this. A highly developed indigenous culture had flourished here since the Bronze Age. In ancient Greek mythology, Colchis was the destination of Jason, home of Medea and of the Golden Fleece. Prometheus, punished by the gods for giving fire to humanity, was chained to the highest mountain peak in the Caucasus . In the 1st millennium BC, through migration, Greek colonisation and ancient Persian expansion, new cultural features arose. Through the Greek cities along its Black Sea coast, Colchis was exposed to Hellenic influences. At the same time, Persian (Achaemenid) elements become visible in royal and elite culture. From the first centuries AD, Romans established their settlements here.

Eastern Georgia was part of the Achaemenid empire. At the beginning of the 3rd century BC, following the empire's collapse, an Iberian kingdom was created, organised and governed according to Persian practice. Pompey passed through the kingdom in AD 65. After this the kingdom gradually became a Roman client state. Local kings received lavish gifts from Rome, many of them discovered in the royal cemetery at Mtskheta, the Iberian capital. Christianity became the state religion in the early 4th century.

Presenter profile

Dr Gocha Tsetskhladze was born in Georgia, educated at universities in the Ukraine, Moscow and Oxford, with doctorates in ancient history and classical archaeology from Moscow and Oxford . He is a specialist in Greek archaeology, the Black Sea, Anatolia, ancient eastern and central Europe, and ancient Greek colonization, having authored three books, 26 edited volumes and over 100 journal articles and chapters in books. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of the journal Ancient East and West and the publication series Colloquia Pontica . He has excavated Greek colonies in the Ukraine, Russia and Georgia over many years. Dr Tsetskhladze spent ten years teaching at the University of London, latterly as Reader in Classical Archaeology, before moving to Melbourne in 2004.