History Of Abkhazia
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History Of Abkhazia
The history of Abkhazia, a region in the South Caucasus, spans more than 5,000 years from its settlement by the Lower Paleolithic hunter-gatherers to its present status as a partially recognized state. Prehistoric settlement Lower Paleolithic hunting-gathering encampments formed the first known settlements on the territory of modern-day Abkhazia. The earliest examples have been unearthed at the sites of Iashkhtva, Gumista, Kelasuri, and Ochamchire. Upper Paleolithic culture settled chiefly on the coastline. Mesolithic and Neolithic periods brought larger permanent settlements and marked the beginning of farming, animal husbandry, and the production of ceramics. The earliest artifacts of megalithic culture appeared in the early 3rd millennium BC and continued into the Bronze Age as the so-called dolmens of Abkhazia, typically consisting of four upright mass stones and a capstone, some of them weighing as much as 50 tonnes. A dolmen from the Eshera archaeological site is the b ...
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South Caucasus
The South Caucasus, also known as Transcaucasia or the Transcaucasus, is a geographical region on the border of Eastern Europe and West Asia, straddling the southern Caucasus Mountains. The South Caucasus roughly corresponds to modern Armenia, Georgia (country), Georgia, and Azerbaijan, which are sometimes collectively known as the Caucasian States. The total area of these countries measures about . The South Caucasus and the North Caucasus together comprise the larger Caucasus geographical region that divides Eurasia. The South Caucasus is a dynamic and complex region where the three countries have pursued distinct geopolitical pathways. Geography The South Caucasus spans the southern portion of the Caucasus Mountains and their lowlands, straddling the border between the continents of Europe and Asia, and extending southwards from the southern part of the Main Caucasian Range of southwestern Russia to the Turkey, Turkish and Armenian borders, and from the Black Sea in the west ...
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Before Common Era
Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the original Anno Domini (AD) and Before Christ (BC) notations used for the same calendar era. The two notation systems are numerically equivalent: " CE" and "AD " each describe the current year; "400 BCE" and "400 BC" are the same year. The expression can be traced back to 1615, when it first appears in a book by Johannes Kepler as the (), and to 1635 in English as " Vulgar Era". The term "Common Era" can be found in English as early as 1708, and became more widely used in the mid-19th century by Jewish religious scholars. Since the late 20th century, BCE and CE have become popular in academic and scientific publications on the grounds that BCE and CE are religiously neutral terms. They have been promoted as more sensitive to non-Christians ...
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Strabo
Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-sighted that he could see things at great distance as if they were nearby was also called "Strabo". (; ''Strábōn''; 64 or 63 BC) was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek geographer who lived in Anatolia, Asia Minor during the transitional period of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. He is best known for his work ''Geographica'', which presented a descriptive history of people and places from different regions of the world known during his lifetime. Additionally, Strabo authored historical works, but only fragments and quotations of these survive in the writings of other authors. Early life Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amasya, Amaseia in Kingdom of Pontus, Pontus in around 64BC. His family had been involved in politics s ...
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Herodotus
Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histories'', a detailed account of the Greco-Persian Wars, among other subjects such as the rise of the Achaemenid dynasty of Cyrus. He has been described as " The Father of History", a title conferred on him by the ancient Roman orator Cicero, and the " Father of Lies" by others. The ''Histories'' primarily cover the lives of prominent kings and famous battles such as Marathon, Thermopylae, Artemisium, Salamis, Plataea, and Mycale. His work deviates from the main topics to provide a cultural, ethnographical, geographical, and historiographical background that forms an essential part of the narrative and provides readers with a wellspring of additional information. Herodotus was criticized in his times for his inclusion of "legends an ...
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Gagra
Gagra ( ka, გაგრა; Russian language, Russian and ) is a town in Abkhazia/Georgia (country), Georgia, sprawling for 5 km on the northeast coast of the Black Sea, at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains. Its subtropical climate made Gagra a popular health Caucasian Riviera, resort in Imperial Russian and Soviet times. It had a population of 26,636 in 1989, but this has declined considerably as a result of ethnic cleansing of Georgians in Abkhazia and other demographic shifts during and after the War in Abkhazia (1992–1993), War in Abkhazia (1992–93). Gagra is the center of the Gagra District, district of the same name. It is located in the western part of the region of Abkhazia, and the Psou River serves as the border with the Krasnodar Krai of Russia. Etymology According to a number of Georgian scholars, ''Gagra'' is derived from ''Gakra'' meaning "walnut" in the Svan language, while ''Gakari/Kakari'' means "a place with walnut trees", which is in accordance to ...
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Pityus
Pitsunda or Bichvinta ( ka, ბიჭვინთა, ; ; ) is a resort town in the Gagra District of Abkhazia/Georgia. Founded by Greek colonists in the 5th century BC, Pitsunda became an important political and religious centre of the region in the antiquity and the Middle Ages. Since Soviet times it has been one of the main resorts of Abkhazia. History Pityus (Ancient Greek: ''Pityus'', Πιτυοῦς, genitive ''Pityuntos'', Πιτυοῦντος) was a large and wealthy Greek city in the antiquity. Pliny wrote in AD 77 that the city had been sacked by the Heniochi. A Roman fort was founded at Pityus in the first half of the 2nd century and a detachment of Legio XV Apollinaris was stationed there. The city was surrounded by a defensive wall, the castellum had a second line of defence built in mid-3rd century AD. Excavations guided by Andria Apakidze unearthed, in 1952, remains of three 4th-century churches and a bath with high-quality mosaic floors. The former "Great Pi ...
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Sukhumi
Sukhumi or Sokhumi is a city in a wide bay on the Black Sea's eastern coast. It is both the Capital city, capital and largest city of Abkhazia, a partially recognised state that most countries consider a part of Georgia (country), Georgia. The city has been controlled by Abkhazia since the War in Abkhazia (1992–1993), Abkhazian war in 1992–93. The city, which has an Sukhumi Dranda Airport, airport, is a port, major rail junction and a holiday resort because of its beaches, Sanatorium (resort), sanatoriums, mineral-water spas and semitropical climate. It is also a member of the International Black Sea Club. Sukhumi's history can be traced to the 6th century BC, when it was settled by Greeks, who named it Dioscurias. During this time and the subsequent Roman period, much of the city disappeared under the Black Sea. The city was named Tskhumi when it became part of the Kingdom of Abkhazia and then the Kingdom of Georgia. Contested by local princes, it became part of the Ottoma ...
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Classical Mythology
Classical mythology, also known as Greco-Roman mythology or Greek and Roman mythology, is the collective body and study of myths from the ancient Greeks and ancient Romans. Mythology, along with philosophy and political thought, is one of the major survivals of classical antiquity throughout later, including modern, Western culture. The Greek word ''mythos'' refers to the spoken word or speech, but it also denotes a tale, story or narrative. As late as the Roman conquest of Greece during the last two centuries Before the Common Era and for centuries afterwards, the Romans, who already had gods of their own, adopted many mythic narratives directly from the Greeks while preserving their own Roman (Latin) names for the gods. As a result, the actions of many Roman and Greek deities became equivalent in storytelling and literature in modern Western culture. For example, the Roman sky god Jupiter or Jove became equated with his Greek counterpart Zeus; the Roman fertility goddess Ven ...
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Dioscuri
Castor and Pollux (or Polydeuces) are twin half-brothers in Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology, known together as the Dioscuri or Dioskouroi. Their mother was Leda (mythology), Leda, but they had different fathers; Castor was the mortal son of Tyndareus, the king of Sparta, while Pollux was the divine son of Zeus, who seduced Leda in the guise of a swan. The pair are thus an example of heteropaternal superfecundation. Though accounts of their birth are varied, they are sometimes said to have been born from an egg, along with their twin sisters Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra. In Latin, the twins are also known as the Gemini ("twins") or Castores, as well as the Tyndaridae or Tyndarids. Pollux asked Zeus to let him share his own immortality with his twin to keep them together, and they were transformed into the constellation Gemini (constellation), Gemini. The pair were regarded as the patrons of sailors, to whom they appeared as St. Elmo's fire. They were also associated ...
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Dioscurias
Sukhumi or Sokhumi is a city in a wide bay on the Black Sea's eastern coast. It is both the capital and largest city of Abkhazia, a partially recognised state that most countries consider a part of Georgia. The city has been controlled by Abkhazia since the Abkhazian war in 1992–93. The city, which has an airport, is a port, major rail junction and a holiday resort because of its beaches, sanatoriums, mineral-water spas and semitropical climate. It is also a member of the International Black Sea Club. Sukhumi's history can be traced to the 6th century BC, when it was settled by Greeks, who named it Dioscurias. During this time and the subsequent Roman period, much of the city disappeared under the Black Sea. The city was named Tskhumi when it became part of the Kingdom of Abkhazia and then the Kingdom of Georgia. Contested by local princes, it became part of the Ottoman Empire in the 1570s, where it remained disputed until it was conquered by the Russian Empire in 1810. Af ...
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Black Sea
The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia (country), Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine. The Black Sea is Inflow (hydrology), supplied by major rivers, principally the Danube, Dnieper and Dniester. Consequently, while six countries have a coastline on the sea, its drainage basin includes parts of 24 countries in Europe. The Black Sea, not including the Sea of Azov, covers , has a maximum depth of , and a volume of . Most of its coasts ascend rapidly. These rises are the Pontic Mountains to the south, bar the southwest-facing peninsulas, the Caucasus Mountains to the east, and the Crimean Mountains to the mid-north. In the west, the coast is generally small floodplains below foothills such as the Strandzha; Cape Emine, a dwindling of the east end ...
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Colchis
In classical antiquity and Greco-Roman geography, Colchis (; ) was an exonym for the Georgian polity of Egrisi ( ka, ეგრისი) located on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, centered in present-day western Georgia. Its population, the Colchians, are generally thought to have been mainly an early Kartvelian-speaking tribe ancestral to contemporary western Georgians, namely Svans and Zans. According to David Marshall Lang: "one of the most important elements in the modern Georgian nation, the Colchians were probably established in the Caucasus by the Middle Bronze Age." It has been described in modern scholarship as "the earliest Georgian formation", which, along with the Kingdom of Iberia, would later contribute significantly to the development of the Kingdom of Georgia and the Georgian nation. Colchis is known in Greek mythology as the destination of the Argonauts, as well as the home to Medea and the Golden Fleece. It was also described as a land rich with g ...
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