Kingdom of the Iberians

The Kingdom of the Iberians was the Georgian Bagratid monarchy of Tao-Klarjeti, the upper Iberian highlands between the Black Sea gorges and the Kura, which emerged around 888 and made the unification of Georgia in 1008. Its founder Ashot had settled Klarjeti in 813, raising Artanuji castle on Vakhtang I's fifth-century rock and taking Byzantine protection as presiding prince and curopalates, fighting the Arabs from his mountain seat. Tao, Klarjeti, Nigali and Shavsheti west of the Arsiani with Meskheti, Javakheti and Kola east, watered by the Choruh and Kura, upper Iberia of north-eastern Turkey and southwestern Georgia between the Gates and the Lesser Caucasus, obeyed the Bagratid crown at Artanuji, succeeding the old Principality. For a century the Iberian kings balanced Byzantium against the caliphate, sheltering the Georgian church and chronicles, until the Bagratid lines merged and their lands flowed in 1008 into the united Kingdom of Georgia, upper Iberia made whole.