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{{other|Armazi (disambiguation)}}
{{Infobox ancient site
  |name = Armazi
  |native_name = 
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  |image = AFCP on Location in the Republic of Georgia. Armaztsikhe 03.jpg
  |alt = 
  |caption = The ruins of a six-column hall in the Armazi palace on [[Mount Bagineti]] (1st century BC).
  |map_type = Georgia
  |map_alt = Location in Georgia
  |map_size = 250px
  |coordinates = {{coord|41|49|N|44|40|E|display=inline,title}}
  |location = [[Kartli]], [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]]
  |region = 
  |type = Settlement
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  |epochs = <!-- actually displays as "Periods" -->
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  |archaeologists = 
  |condition = In ruins
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}}
'''Armazi''' ({{lang-ka|არმაზი}}) is a locale in [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]], 4 km southwest of [[Mtskheta]] and 22 km northwest of [[Tbilisi]]. A part of historical Greater Mtskheta, it is a place where the ancient city of the same name and the original capital of the early Georgian kingdom of [[Kartli]] or [[Caucasian Iberia|Iberia]] was located. It particularly flourished in the early centuries AD and was destroyed by the [[Arab]] invasion in the 730s.

== Archaeology ==
Minor excavations on the territory of Armazi carried out in 1890 revealed the plinth of adobe town walls, with stone steps, and cleared the two-room structure, where fragments of a woman's torso of the 1st century AD were discovered. From 1943 to 1948 large-scale excavation was undertaken under [[Andria Apakidze]] of the [[Georgian Academy of Sciences]], resumed in 1985 and continuing. These have shown that the adobe town walls and towers, built upon a plinth of hewn stone in the first half of the 1st century AD, surrounded the hill top and the side sloping down towards the river, an area of 30 ha. The land within the walls was terraced and various buildings were sited on the terraces.

The three major cultural layers have been identified: the earliest dates back to the 4th-3rd century BC (Armazi I), the middle one is from the 3rd-1st century BC (Armazi II), and the relatively newer structure belongs to the 1st-6th century AD (Armazi III). Armazi I is constructed of massive stone blocks forming an impregnable base but were finished off by less durable mud brick. It also contains a great hall of six columns with a tiled roof. Armazi II is noted for a temple with an apse. Armazi III is the richest layer constructed of elegantly cut stone blocks, joined together with lime mortar and metal clamps. Among the surviving structures are the royal palace, several richly decorated tombs, a bathhouse and a small stone mausoleum.<ref name="Iranica">[[David Marshall Lang|Lang, David Marshall]]. [http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/armazi-or-armaz-tsikhe-an-important-royal-city-of-georgia-iberia "Armazi".] ''[[Encyclopædia Iranica]] Online Edition''. Accessed on September 13, 2007.</ref>

The area is now a state-protected field museum administered as a part of the National Archaeology Museum-Reserve of Greater Mtskheta.<ref>[http://www.georgianmuseums.ge/MuseumEn/Musums/mtskheta/Didi_mcxeta.html  Georgian Museums: National Archaeology Museum-Reserve of Greater Mtskheta.]{{dead link|date=October 2016 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} ''Ministry of Culture, Monuments Protection and Sports of Georgia''. Accessed on September 13, 2007.</ref>

== History ==
[[File:Armazi Citadel ruins, Georgia.jpg|thumb|270px|The ruins of the Armazi citadel]] 
Archaeological evidences testify that the ancient Armazi was far more extensive than it is today. Armazi's strategic situation was dictated by its ready access to the [[Daryal Pass]], the main road over the [[Greater Caucasus]], through which the [[Scythians]] invaded the ancient [[Near East]].

The name of the city and its dominant [[acropolis]], Armaz-Tsikhe (literally, "citadel of Armazi"; არმაზციხე), is usually taken to derive from [[Armazi (god)|Armazi]], the chief [[deity]] of the pagan Iberian pantheon. He was either a shortened form of Armazd or Ahur Mazda, the Zoroastrian God. Or he was derived from the Vedic God Armah which means the Moon God in Sanskrit. The latter is thought to be the correct one because of the findings of moon god relics. The name first appears in the early medieval Georgian annals though it is clearly much older and reflected in the [[Classical antiquity|Classical]] name Armastica or Harmozica of [[Strabo]], [[Pliny the Elder|Pliny]], [[Ptolemy]] and [[Dio Cassius]]. According to a collection of medieval Georgian chronicles, Armaztsikhe was founded, in the 3rd century BC, by king [[Pharnavaz I of Iberia]] at the place hitherto known as [[Kartli]]. This fortress stood on the modern-day [[Mount Bagineti]], on the right bank of the [[Mtkvari River]] (Kura), at its confluence with the [[Aragvi River|Aragvi]]. The other citadel, [[Tsitsamuri]] (წიწამური) or Sevsamora of the Classical authors, stood just opposite, on the left bank of the Aragvi and controlled the road towards [[Mount Kazbek]].<ref name="Iranica"/>

Even after the rise of Mtskheta as a capital of Iberia, Armazi remained the holy city of Iberian [[paganism]] and one of the defenses of Mtskheta. The fortress was captured by the [[Ancient Rome|Roman]] general [[Pompey]] during his 65 BC campaign against the Iberian king [[Artoces of Iberia|Artag]]. A ruined structure over the Mtkvari River dates from that time and is still called "Pompey's bridge". Armazi's heyday came when Iberia was allied with the Roman emperors. [[Armazi stele of Vespasian]] unearthed in 1867 reports that the [[Roman Emperor]] [[Vespasian]] fortified Armazi for the Iberian king [[Mithridates I of Iberia|Mithridates I]] in 75 AD.<ref name="Sherk">Sherk, Robert K. (1988), ''The Roman Empire: Augustus to Hadrian'', p. 128-9. [[Cambridge University Press]], {{ISBN|0-521-33887-5}}.</ref> This defense wall constructed in a unique position to block the southern exit of the Daryal Pass before it widens into the plain of modern Tbilisi was presumably a preventive measure against the [[Alans]] who frequently raided the Roman frontiers from across the Caucasus.
[[File:Armazi Bilingual.jpg|thumb|[[Armazi stele of Serapit]].]]
During this period, Armazi was governed by a hereditary [[pitiakhsh]], whose rank approximated to that of [[viceroy]] or [[satrap]], and was second in the official Iberian hierarchy after the king. The excavations of the hereditary necropolis of this dynasty yielded [[engraved gem]]s bearing portraits of two of these viceroys, [[Asparukh (name)|Asparukh]] (probably the contemporary of the Roman emperor [[Hadrian]], 117-138 AD) and Zevakh ([[Floruit|fl.]] 150 AD), a rare example of authentic, pre-Christian Georgian portraiture.<ref>[[Lang, David Marshall]]. [http://www.iranica.com/newsite/ "Asparukh"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080712124138/http://www.iranica.com/newsite/ |date=July 12, 2008 }}. ''[[Encyclopædia Iranica]] Online Edition''. Accessed on September 13, 2007.</ref> [[Aramaic alphabet|Aramaic]] inscriptions from Armazi mention also the royal architect and the [[epitropos]] ("[[Lord Chamberlain]]"). 

Armazi played a central role in ancient Georgian cultural life and in the evolution of local epigraphy in Georgia, prior to the invention of the [[Georgian alphabet]] in the 5th century. Among a number of curious inscriptions found at Armazi, the most important is the bilingual [[Greek alphabet|Greco]]-Aramaic tombstone inscription commemorating the short-lived Serapita and her noble lineage. It contains an unusual, in its ductus and some of its forms, version of the Aramaic alphabet which came to be known as the "[[Armazic language|Armazi script]]" although it can also be found outside Armazi, in other parts of Georgia.

With the transfer of the Georgian capital to [[Tbilisi]] in the late 5th or early 6th century, Armazi went into a gradual decline. It still had its own high-ranking commandant, a post held in A.D. 545 by a certain Wistam. The city was finally destroyed and razed to the ground in 736 by the [[Arab]] commander [[Marwan ibn Muhammad]] (the future [[Umayyad]] [[Caliph]] Marwan II).<ref name="Iranica"/>

The city of Armazi has never been revived since then, but a [[Georgian Orthodox]] monastery of [[St. Nino]] was constructed there between 1150 and 1178. This is a six-apse [[hall church]] which, as well as its associated structures, is now largely in ruins and only some fragments of the 12th-century murals have survived.

== See also ==
*[[Dzalisi]]

== References ==

{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
{{Commonscat|Armazi}}
*{{in lang|ka}} [https://web.archive.org/web/20110721030413/http://www.mtskheta-mtianeti.gov.ge/?m=6&sm=1&ssm=4#a7 Historical monuments of the Mtskheta District]. The [[Mtskheta-Mtianeti]] Regional Administration.  
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20040826060306/http://www.osgf.ge/armazi/armazibl.htm The Bilingual Inscription from Armazi (1st century AD) (Greek and Aramaic texts with German translation)] The Armazi Project. [[Open Society Institute|Open Society – Georgia Foundation]].
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20071110122126/http://www.itic.org.ge/udabno/bagin_e.htm Ruins on Mount Bagineti]. Fund "Udabno". 
*[http://www.geocities.com/revaz_zhghenti/bagineti/index.htm Mt. Bagineti] ([https://archive.today/20091025182919/http://www.geocities.com/revaz_zhghenti/bagineti/index.htm Archived] 2009-10-25). Photos by Revaz Zhghenti.

[[Category:Mtskheta]]
[[Category:Archaeological sites in Georgia (country)]]
[[Category:Museums in Georgia (country)]]
[[Category:Former cities in Georgia (country)]]
[[Category:Razed cities]]
[[Category:4th-century BC establishments in Georgia (country)]]
[[Category:Populated places established in the 4th century BC]]
[[Category:8th-century disestablishments in Georgia (country)]]
[[Category:Populated places disestablished in the 8th century]]
[[Category:Buildings and structures in Mtskheta]]
[[Category:Tourist attractions in Mtskheta-Mtianeti]]
[[Category:736 disestablishments]]