A kingdom in western Georgia, with Greek colonies (Phasis, Dioscurias) on the coast.
-600
Colchis was the earliest Georgian state on the eastern Black Sea (western Georgia), taking shape by the 6th century BC. The Greeks knew it as a land of gold, flax and honey.
The Colchian shore is bound up with the myth of the Golden Fleece and the voyage of the Argonauts to fetch it from Aea and King Aeetes. Greek colonies arose on the coast: Phasis (modern Poti), Dioscurias (Sukhumi), Pityus.
Colchis struck its own silver coinage (the «Colchian tetri»), developed metallurgy and winemaking, and became one of the two roots of Georgian statehood alongside eastern Iberia.