Virk of Abarshahr and the Cauc. Iberia

"VIRK" AND CAUCASIAN IBERIA

The Georgia has never been "Georgia", but always Gurjistan (< Gorgestan). Even more stupid are the attempts of Georgian scientists who are trying to interpret the Armenian name of Georgia "Virk" and "Vrastan" (< Vrk_i/e_stan) as some kind of never-existing georgian word "Svir" or "Sber" as a designation for Georgia.

The ancient people of "Obarenes" on the Kura River and the Armenian (Iranian) designation of Georgia as "Virk" mean "Land of wolves" of the province of "Abarshahr" (Khorasan).
 
It is well known that the region of Vrkan was part of the province of "Abarshahr" with the city of the same name. The Persians hated this name because of its connection with the "White Huns" and changed the city to "Nishapur", and the province itself was reduced in size.

Shahinshah's inscription refers to Shapur as the Iranian "Vrkan"("Virzhan") so is "Abarshahr" and in a slightly strange clarification of "the whole of Abarshahr".


From the Name of Georgia (Wiki.eng)

"All external exonyms are likely derived from gorgan, the Persian designation of the Georgians, evolving from Parthian wurghan  and Middle Persian wiruchan, rooting out from Old Persian vrk;n meaning "the land of the wolves". This is also reflected in Old Armenian virk, it being a source of Ancient Greek iberia , that entered Latin as Hiberia. The transformation of vrkan into gorgan and alteration of v into g was a phonetic phenomenon in the word formation of Proto-Aryan and ancient Iranian languages. All exonyms are simply phonetic variations of the same root vrk/varka meaning wolf"


2. In the inscription in honor of Shahanshah Shapur, the province of Iberia is indicated as "Virzhan"

3. Armenian designation for Georgia,- Virk' and Vrastan.

4. Muslim designation for Georgia - Gurjistan (< gorgestan)



Please note that in Latin sources - "Iberians or Obarens inhabit the Caucasus from the Black Sea to the Caspian", but Georgians present this fact as "The central part of modern Eastern Georgia". Wikipedia also does not have a single reference to ancient authors. It is generally hidden from readers where the Latin sources localized the borders of this country. It is clear from the text that Iberia was known to the Greeks and Romans, but that they wrote not a single word about it!

Also, there is not a word that the "Iver River" in Georgian Iberia is later known as "IORI", and this one is perfectly understandable to modern Caucasian Avars, because it is a "river" ('OR) but is not at all understandable to Georgians.

Another strange detail. The Georgians do not know any clear etymology of the ethnonyms "Iberians" at all, but they consider it possible to have a connection with the old Armenian designation VIRK', which in reality is not Armenian, but Iranian. This is the designation of the Iranian province and the Caspian Sea as a whole.

Absolutely all information about Iberia in Georgia begins with Iranian rule and specifically the Parthian Arsakides dynasty. The self-name of the Parthians proper was "Aparak, Aparnak". But in the era of the Sassanides, the language changed, "p" began to be pronounced as "b", and "k" as "g".

Almost everything that can be read about Iberia in Georgia reflects the Georgian textbooks of the Soviet era, and everyone else copies this information.



From Encyclopaedia Iranica

The first king of Iberia (ancient name of the whole of eastern Georgia), Pharnavaz, took the Persian governance system as a model for the country’s state organization. This was the result of Persian influence over the tribes residing in eastern Georgia.

From the third to the seventh century Georgian territory presented an arena for rivalries between Byzantium and Persia. Kartli, and generally eastern Georgia in that period, was under the Persian sphere of Influence. In the sixth century the Sasanians abolished the kingdom of Iberia (Kartli), and Iberia became a province of Persia. The country was governed by a marbz;n appointed by the Sasanian king (Berdzenishvili; Javakhishvili; Janashia, p. 109). Following the Arab conquest in the mid-seventh century, a Tbilisi emirate was created, which was abolished in 1122 by the Georgian King David IV. In the late medieval period, Georgia split into small kingdoms and principalities. From 1484 to 1762 Kartli was as a distinct political entity mostly dominated by Persia.

In Engl. Wikipaedia

ts population, the Iberians, formed the nucleus of the Kartvelians (i.e. Georgians). Iberia, ruled by the Pharnavazid, Artaxiad, Arsacid and Chosroid royal dynasties, together with Colchis to its west, would form the nucleus of the unified medieval Kingdom of Georgia under the Bagrationi dynasty.

In the 4th century, after the Christianization of Iberia by Saint Nino during the reign of King Mirian III, Christianity was made the state religion of the kingdom. Starting in the early 6th century AD, the kingdom's position as a Sassanian vassal state was changed into direct Persian rule. In 580, king Hormizd IV (578-590) abolished the monarchy after the death of King Bakur III, and Iberia became a Persian province ruled by a marzpan (governor).

About Name "Iberia"

The provenance of the name "Iberia" is unclear. One theory on the etymology of the name Iberia, proposed by Giorgi Melikishvili, was that it was derived from the contemporary Armenian designation for Georgia, Virk; (Armenian), and Ivirk; , which itself was connected to the word Sver (or Svir), the Kartvelian designation for Georgians.The letter "s" in this instance served as a prefix for the root word "Ver" (or "Vir"). Accordingly, in following Ivane Javakhishvili's theory, the ethnic designation of "Sber", a variant of Sver, was derived from the word "Hber" ("Hver") (and thus Iberia) and the Armenian variants, Veria and Viria.

Historian Adolfo Dom;nguez Monedero [es] argues that the name Iberian was given by Ancient Greeks to two different peoples located at the extremities of their world (in the Iberian Peninsula and the Caucasus) due to the mythical wealth associated with them (Tartessos and the Golden Fleece of Colchis)


Early history according to Wiki

"In earliest times, the area of Caucasian Iberia was inhabited by several related tribes stemming from the Kura-Araxes culture".


From "261 CE – Revolution in Caucasian Iberia1
Nicolas J. Preud’homme (Sorbonne Universite, Paris)"


The Caucasian kingdom of Iberia had been, at first, relatively preserved from the profound mutations that accompanied the overthrow of Arsacids by the new Sasanian power in Iran. The builder

of the new Empire, Ardaxshir I (r. 224-242), did not interfere with the ruling dynasties in Media-Atropatene, Armenia, Albania and the rest of South Caucasia. It was during the reign of his successor,Shapur I (r. 239-270), that the Sasanian revolution affected this part of Asia. The Roman Empire was
again struggling with an Iranian expansionism much more assertive than under the last Arsacids. For Caucasian history, this period marked by profound upheavals
remains quite obscure, not only due to the lack of sources, but also to the contradictions between divergent documents. However, some testimonies found in chronicles, epigraphy and archaeology are likely to cast new light on the events which changed Caucasus during the period that scholars have traditionally referred to as the “Third Century Crisis”.

Since the time when the Sasanian Ardaxshir had dethroned the last Parthian king Ardavan IV in 224, the new Sasanian power had to contend with the offshoots of the Arsacid dynasty present in Caucasus.


The lapse of the Iranian branch of Arsacid dynasty, following the advent of the first Sasanian sovereign, attracted to Iran the hostility of sister dynasties in the Caucasus, especially in Armenia, where since the 1st century CE, the Arshakuni held the throne4. In Albania, it is supposed by several scholars that a branch of Arsacids took the reins of royalty during the first or the second century CE and would have ruled continuously until 510, but this allegation is far from being certain insofar as very few names of Albanians kings are known.


In Iberia, an ancient dynasty, that had forged ties with the Arshakuni of Armenia and other noble houses in the Iranian world, occupied the throne for more than  three centuries


Thus, the whole history of Iberia is a listing of Iranian names and dynasties, starting from the Parthian Arsacides