The Chronicle
მატიანე
The Great Migration
When the Great Flood covered the earth and the waters began to recede, the Caucasus mountains were the first to emerge — their mighty peaks piercing through the vast ocean like the spine of a newborn world. Noah, the righteous patriarch, beheld these mountains and knew they were chosen by God.
Noah gave the Caucasus to his descendant Thargamos, fifth in his sacred lineage — the mightiest land for the mightiest of his blood. Thargamos took his eight sons and settled among those eternal peaks, and there began the story of all Caucasian peoples.
"Where the mountains touch the sky and the eagles fear to fly higher, there shall my sons build kingdoms that outlast the stones themselves."
— ქართლის ცხოვრება
Thargamos and his sons made the Caucasus their home. The land was abundant — rivers of crystal water, valleys of unmatched fertility, forests teeming with life. As his sons grew into men, each revealed a nature as distinct as the land itself.
When the time came, Thargamos ascended to the highest peak and there, in a sacred amphitheater of stone beneath the aurora, he divided the lands among his eight sons.
To Kartlos he gave the heartland, the fertile valleys of what would become Georgia. To Haos, the lands of wisdom. To Kavkasos, the mountains themselves. To Egros, the Black Sea coast of Colchis. To each son, a domain befitting his nature. And from these eight sons sprang the eight great peoples of the Caucasus, bound forever by the blood of Thargamos and the blessing of Noah.
