Artaani

Artaani (Georgian: არტაანი Art'aani) was a region in historical southwestern Georgia.

Map showing the historical Georgian region of Artaani/Ardahan.

history

in 12th century BC region was part of newly formed tribal confederacy of Dieuchi, This federation was powerful enough to counter the Assyrian, later Urartian forays, but, in 760s BC it was finally destroyed and annexed by Colchian incursions, which now found itself facing the hostile Urartu. The Urartian King Sardur II (764–735) led several campaigns against Colchis around 750–741 BC, significantly weakening and exposing it to the attacks of northern tribes. By 720 BC, the Cimmerian incursions from the north destroyed Colchis and significantly affected local society and culture. The first surviving record about this region is attributed to Strabo, who calls it Gogarene (Gugark) and mentions that it was a part of the Kingdom of Armenia, taken away from the Kingdom of Iberia.^[1][2] From the ninth to eleventh centuries, Ardahan served as an important transit point for goods arriving from the Abbasid Caliphate and departing to the regions around the Black Sea. During the eighth to ten centuries the region was in the hands of the Bagrationi princes of Tao and Klarjeti, After the liberation from Arab rule, it was incorporated into the Kingdom of Georgia. According to the Arab historian Yahya of Antioch, the Byzantines razed Ardahan and slaughtered its population in 1021.^[2] The Mongols took hold of the region in the 1230s but the Georgian princes of Samtskhe-Saatabago were able to recapture it in 1266.

In 1878, after the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), the region was incorporated into the Russian Empire, and until 1918 was known as Kars Oblast. Part of the Democratic Republic of Georgia from 1918 to 1921, Ardahan was reclaimed by Turkey under the Treaty of Kars in 1921.

References

1. Strabo. Geographica. 11.14.7.
2. (Armenian) «Արդահան» [Ardahan]. Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia. Yerevan: Armenian Academy of Sciences, 1976, vol. ii, p. 7.