Ardanuç Artvin Turkey

Ashot is the son of the Iberian nobleman Adarnase who had founded the Bagratoni hereditary fiefdom in Tao-Klarjeti (now northeast Turkey) and bequeathed to his son extensive possessions acquired upon the extinction of his Guaramid and Chosroid cousins.

Ashot initially had failed to gain a foothold in central Iberia (Shida Kartli), his efforts being dashed by the Arab control of Tiflis.

Ashot has established himself in his patrimonial duchy of Klarjeti, where he has restored the castle of Artanuji said to have been built by the Iberian king Vakhtang I Gorgasali in the fifth century, and received imperial protection, being recognized as the presiding prince and curopalates of Iberia.

To revive a country devastated by the Arabs and cholera epidemics, he patronized the local monastic communities established by Grigol Khandzteli, and encouraged the settlement of the Georgians in the region.

As a result, the political and religious center of Iberia is effectively transferred from central Iberia to the southwest, in Tao-Klarjeti.

From his base in Tao-Klarjeti, Ashot fights to recover more Georgian lands from the Arab hold and, though not always successful, succeeds in taking much of the adjoining lands from Tao in the southwest to Shida Kartli in the northeast, including Kola, Artani, Javakheti, Samtskhe, and Trialeti.

Of the former Chosroid possessions, only Kakheti to the east eludes him.

With local Arab emirs in the Caucasus growing ever more independent, the Caliph recognizes Ashot as the prince of Iberia in order to counter the rebellious emir of Tiflis Isma’il ibn Shu’aib around 818.

The emir had enlisted support of Ashot’s foe—the Kakhetian prince Grigol—and the Georgian highland tribes of Mtiulians and Tsanars.

Ashot, joined by Constantinople’s vassal king of Abasgia, Theodosius II, meets the emir on the Ksani, winning a victory and pushing the Kakhetians from central Iberian lands.

Tao-Klarjeti is the conventional name of the medieval Georgian (Kartvelian) kingdoms and principalities, succeeding the Principate of Iberia, in what is now part of the provinces of Erzurum, Artvin, Ardahan and Kars in north-eastern Turkey.

The principalities of Tao-Klarjeti had arisen out of the turmoil of the Muslim conquests in the Caucasus in the seventh and eighth centuries, succeeding the early medieval kingdom of Caucasian Iberia.

Bagrat is a younger son of Sumbat I, founder of the Klarjeti line of the Bagratids.

Upon Sumbat’s death in 889, he had succeeded his father as prince of Klarjeti, while his elder brother (and likely a legitimate successor to Sumbat), David, appears as a ruler of some less important territory north of Klarjeti—Adjara and Nigali.

Like Sumbat, Bagrat has the epithet of Artanujeli ("of Artanuji") and rules with the title of mampali, having the thriving commercial town of Artanuji (now Ardanuç) as his residence.

In 891, he becomes involved in the dynastic feud among the Bagratids and helps Adarnase IV to defeat Gurgen I.

Adarnase is the only son of David I, the prince of Iberia with the imperial title of curopalates, who was murdered by his cousin Nasra in 881.

As Adarnase was still a minor, the emperor—pursuant to the policy of division—had appointed as curopalates, not Adarnase, but his cousin Gurgen.

Nasra’s subsequent attempt to dispossess Adarnase of patrimonial inheritance had been defeated with the help of the Armenian king Ashot I in 888.

Allied with the resurgent Armenians, Adarnase then launched, from his base in Lower Tao, a policy of expansion.

Not being a curopalates and having Armenia's example before him, Adarnase assumed the title of king and subsequently defeated his rival curopalates Gurgen.

The imperial government adapts itself to the circumstances and, upon Gurgen’s death in 891, recognizes Adarnase as curopalates.

…Tao, and along the easternmost border of the Empire, the lands directly controlled by Constantinople.

The fragmented petty kingdoms of Armenia have already begun to be destroyed from the west: the province of Taron had been annexed to the Constantinople’s empire in 968.

Armenian historians of this period speak of their adversaries as “… long-haired Turkmens armed with bow and lance on horses which flew like the wind … .” The Armenian princes appeal to Constantinople for protection from these forays, and Emperor Basil II has compelled David of Tao to bequeath him his lands on his death.

Basil gathers his inheritance upon David’s death in 1000, forcing the successor Georgian Bagratid ruler Bagrat III to recognize the new rearrangement.

Bagrat III’s son, George I, inherits a longstanding claim to the succession of David III of Tao.

While Basil is preoccupied with his Bulgarian campaigns, George gains momentum to invade Tao/Tayk and Basean in 1014.

Constantine VIII, shortly after Bagrat's ascension to the Georgian throne, sends in an army to take over the key city-fortress of Artanuji (modern Ardanuç, Turkey) on behalf of the Georgian Bagratid prince Demetre, son of Gurgen of Klarjeti, who had been dispossessed by Bagrat IV's grandfather, Bagrat III, of his patrimonial fief at Artanuji early in the 1010s.

Several Georgians nobles defect to the Empire, but Bagrat's loyal subjects put up a stubborn fight.

Constantine's death in 1028 renders the invasion abortive.

The queen dowager Mariam had paid a visit in 1030 to the new emperor Romanos III, negotiated a peace treaty, and returned with the high imperial title of curopalates for her son in 1032.

Mariam also brings him an imperial princess, Helena, as wife.

Helena is a daughter of Basil Argyros, brother of the emperor Romanos, and the marriage is a diplomatic effort to establish a strategic association.

However, Helena's death shortly afterwards at Kutaisi presents the Georgian court with the opportunity to pursue yet another diplomatic initiative through Bagrat's marriage with Borena, daughter of the king of Alania, a Christian country in the North Caucasus.

Liparit seizes the key fortress of Artanuji, thereby becoming the virtual ruler of the southern and eastern provinces of Georgia.

Bagrat IV, defeated in the battle, will not be able to restore his authority in the kingdom until 1059, forcing the renegade Duke Liparit into exile in Constantinople.