Colchis

Historical region of Georgia

In classical antiquity and Greco-Roman geography, Colchis (Ancient Greek: Κολχίς) was an exonym for the Georgian polity of Egrisi (Georgian: ეგრისი) located on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, centered in present-day western Georgia also including the region of Abkhazia. Its population, the Colchians, are generally believed to have been primarily early Zan-speaking tribes, ancestral to the modern Laz and Mingrelian peoples. According to David Marshall Lang: "one of the most important elements in the modern Georgian nation, the Colchians were probably established in the Caucasus by the Middle Bronze Age." It has been described in modern scholarship as "the earliest Georgian formation", which, along with the Kingdom of Iberia, would later contribute significantly to the development of the Kingdom of Georgia and the Georgian nation.

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