Early proto-Georgian polities mentioned in Assyrian and Urartian sources.
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Diauehi (Daiaeni in Assyrian texts, Diauhi in Urartian) and Kolkha (Urartian Qulha) were Early Iron Age polities of the 13th–8th centuries BC, regarded as the earliest state formations of the ancestors of the Georgians.
Diauehi is first mentioned around 1118 BC in an inscription of the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser I. It occupied the highlands of north-eastern Anatolia and south-western Georgia (the upper Chorokhi, the later region of Tao) and in the early 8th century BC was subdued by the Urartian kings Menua and Argishti I.
Kolkha (Qulha) appears in Urartian inscriptions of the mid-8th century BC, including those on the campaigns of king Sarduri II; it is located in western Georgia and linked to the Colchians, and the region is seen as a forerunner of the classical kingdom of Colchis.
Diauehi and Kolkha are a bridge between prehistory and the classical states of the South Caucasus: they were the first to mark on the map the political centres of the Kartvelian peoples.