Peter Nasmyth described Georgians as people whose past is still the most valued part of themselves with determined desire to hang onto their culture.

 

Professor Donald Rayfield  wrote that “Georgian luminaries, medieval and modern, Obsessed with Georgia’s mythical greatness in prehistory and in real grandeur in the twelfth century, shared messianic view of their country”. 

 

Mythology of legendary greatness entangled with the traces of thousands of years of history of overwhelming depth gives an insight into the ethnic psychology and character: demonstrative manner of self-expression and the certain sense of superiority on one hand and humble kindness and chivalry on the other. 

 

Underlining the argument that queen Pasiphae, wife of Great king Minos was a Georgian woman, the sister of Cholchian king Aeetes, Georgian scientists claim that ties between porto-Georgian and Minoan cultures took deep roots with emigrations from Georgian territories to Crete happening as early as 6th millennia BC making the one of the first settlers there. 

Could it be possible that wine culture and possibly wheat culture and the knowledge of bronze production was taken to Crete from Georgia? 

Could it be widely recognized that Phaistos Disc (disk of fired clay from the Minoan palace of Phaistos on the island of Crete) was deciphered in proto-kartvelian (precursor of Georgian) language? 

Georgian scientists are working to develop an idea that the culture known as Minoan Civilization which in turn gave birth to Greek and European cultures was in reality borne out of the culture which was formed in the territory of today’s Georgia. 

Myth of argonauts according to which Greek Jason obtained the Golden Fleece from the legendary kingdom of Colchety is translated as symbolism of the great civilizational impulse that Hellenic world actually took from Colchian culture. 

 

Our tour does not at all intend to argue the legitimacy of any of the above claims - it, of course, is a matter of scientific verification. But an insight in these claims supported by some of the most prominent Georgian scholars lays out an understanding of Georgia and a curious aspect of sense of itself.

 

Question of ethnic identity is activated especially when one needs self-representation, and in today’s world with increased intercultural exchange, struggle for acculturation and an in-tuned sense of identity is indeed a central topic. People create myths and legends and write their own history to legitimize their unity and bonding to ethnic groups and to justify their place in the world. Myths, legends and their own story is key to their understanding.