A copper coin of Queen Tamar of Georgia minted in Georgian Asomtavruli script reads ႧႰႣႧ with ႵႩჃႩ representing Georgian numeral system, meaning "Tamar, David, AD 1200"; the text written in Arabic script[l] reads ملكة الملكات جلال الدنيا والدين تامار ابنة كيوري ظهير المسيح meaning "Queen of Queens, the glory of the world and of the faith, Tamar, daughter of Kywri, champion[i] of the Messiah". Kept at the Simon Janashia Museum of Georgia.
Pre-Christian Georgian monarchs of the Pharnavazid dynasty were divinely assigned pharnah and its loss usually led to the monarch's imminent death or overthrow in Georgian kingship.[3][a] Introductory part of the style for the monarchs from the Bagrationi dynasty always started with "By the Grace of God, We, of Jesse, David, Solomon, Bagrationi, Supreme by God, anointed and crowned by God",[4][5] underlining their divine right and claim for biblical descent.[6][7] The consolidation of the deified[8] Bagrationi dynasty and its unprecedented political unification of lands,[9] would inaugurate the Georgian Golden Age and creation of the only medieval pan-Caucasian empire[10] that would rule for a thousand years.[11] Georgian monarchs would have intense religious and political competition with the Byzantine emperors, saw themselves as the successors of the emperor Constantine the Great[12] and even as rulers of a new Byzantium based in the Caucasus,[13][14] whence the clergy would view the Georgian Orthodoxy as an "imperial church" that would fight the heretics.[15] Even though unprecedentedly "Byzantinized Georgia"[16] entertained its powerful neighbor's concepts and models of Constantinopolitan bureaucracy and aristocracy, it was never slavishly adopted or mimicked; rather, it was creatively and deliberately adapted to the local culture and environment. At the same time, the rulers of Christian Georgia would still be embracing the traditional influences of the Persian Shahnameh[17] and Arabic legends[18] that would remain strong and intact; some of their styles would even become Islamic[m] in type.[19][20][21] As the Crown would be gathering additional lands the style would continue to expand, but remain distinctly enumerated and include all the subjects of the Georgian monarch.[22] Even after the collapse of the unified kingdom, Georgian kings would continue to emblazon themselves with the former imperial style and they would stake the claim to be the absolute rulers of all-Georgia.[23] This imperial legacy of the Bagrations continues to bear fruit even today, with its self-image as the unrivalled pinnacle of the Georgian politics, culture and society.[24]
King of Kings, of the Abkhazians, Iberians, Ranis, Kakhetians, Armenians, Shirvanshah and Shahanshah,[g][m] master of the East and the North, son of Demetre, sword of the Messiah,[69][70] son of King of Kings.[71]
King of Kings, Queen of Queens, empress (autokrator) of all the East and West, champion[i] of the Messiah,[72][73] of the Abkhazians, Iberians, Ranis, Kakhetians, and Armenians, Shirvanshah and Shahanshah, the great queen, the Glory of the World and of the Faith, daughter of the great King of Kings,[74][75] sovereign of Christendom.[76]
King of Kings, son of Tamar, of the Abkhazians, Iberians, Ranis, Kakhetians and Armenians, Shirvanshah and Shahanshah, the Sovereign of all the East and the West, sword of the Messiah,[77][78] lord of the Javakhians, the great king, glory of the world and faith.[79]
King of Kings, son of King of Kings Rusudan, of the Abkhazians, Iberians, Ranis, Kakhetians and Armenians, Shirvanshah and Shahanshah, the Sovereign of all Georgia and the North,[82][83] slave of Qaan, of the ruler of the world, David the king.[84]
King of Kings of the Abkhazians, Iberians, Ranis, Kakhetians, Armenians, Shahanshah and Shirvanshah, of the East and the West, of the South and the North, of both countries, of two[q] thrones and crowns, the godlike Suzerain and the Sovereign.[88]
King of Kings of the Abkhazians, Iberians, Ranis, Kakhetians and Armenians, Shahanshah and Shirvanshah, the Suzerain and Sovereign of all the North, the East and the West, descendant of Gorgasali.[90]
King of Kings of the Abkhazians, Iberians, Ranis, Kakhetians and Armenians, Shirvanshah and Shahanshah, of all Georgia, of all the East and the West, of the North, the Sovereign and Suzerain of two[q] kingdoms, the ruler of all,[91][92] the victorious king.[93]
King of Kings, of many, Shirvanshah, of the Abkhazians, Iberians, Ranis, Kakhetians, Armenians, of all Georgia and the North, of the West and the East, the Suzerain and Sovereign of two[q] golden thrones and all the lands.[95][96]
King of Kings, Suzerain and Sovereign of two[q] thrones and kingdoms, of the Abkhazians, Iberians, Ranis, Kakhetians and Armenians, descendant of Nimrod,[97] slave of God.[98]
King of Kings, strong and invincible, majestic and protector of the holy kingdom, of the Jikians, Abkhazians, Iberians, Ranis, Kakhetians and Armenians, Shirvanshah, of all the East and the West, of all Georgia, of all the North, the Suzerain and Sovereign of the throne.[99]
King of Kings, Suzerain and Sovereign of the Abkhazians, Iberians, Ranis, Kakhetians and Armenians, Shahanshah and Shirvanshah, of all the East and the West, the South and the North, of both two[q] thrones and kingdoms.[120][121]
King of Kings and the Sovereign of the Abkhazians, Iberians, Ranis, Kakhetians and Armenians, Shahanshah and Shirvanshah, of the East and the West.[122]
King of Kings, Suzerain and Sovereign of the Abkhazians, Iberians, Ranis, Kakhetians and Armenians, Shahanshah and Shirvanshah, of all the East and the West, the South and the North, of both two[q] kingdoms and countries, the High King, Godly anointed and invincible, the most excellent King of all, of the most brilliant purple crown, son of Great, all-powerful and invincible King of Kings.[123]
King of Kings, of the Abkhazians, Iberians, Kakhetians, Armenians, Shahanshah and Shirvanshah, of all the East and the West, the South and the North, the Sovereign of both two[q] thrones and countries, Godly given and anointed, great and invincible, the most excellent King of all, of the brilliant sceptre and a purple crown.[125]
King of Kings, the Sovereign, of the Abkhazians, Iberians, Ranis, Kakhetians, Armenians, Shahanshah and Shirvanshah of all the other kings and countries, strong and invincible,[126][127] supreme by God and unyielding by God.[128]
A custom dictated that the new monarch should have had a biological connection to the existing dynasty, in part because kingly pharnah was the prerogative of certain families. King Pharnajom unwisely abandoned Georgian polytheism thus losing the kingship.[140][141]
"Iberians" refers specifically to Kartvelians/Georgians.[143] The term Iberia/Iberian would undergo a transformation, its "all-Georgian" reach would be extended by the Bagrationi monarchs and their contemporaries.[144]
This title entered the style in spite to the contemporary Muslim laqab, the Sword of Islam and Sword of Allah.[145] The title was pointedly militant and meant "Defender of Christianity" (Messiah i.e. Jesus Christ).[146] David IV was the first Georgian king to assume the title "Sword of the Messiah".[147]
These titles entered the style from Persian shah and was motivated by the aggressive expansionist policies of the Georgian monarchs in and beyond the region.[148] The inclusion of Shirvanshah (lit. the shah/king of Shirvan) and Shahanshah (lit. the shah of shahs/King of kings) in style by the Georgian monarchs was an usurpation of Islamic and Sasanid political ideals. These titles were specifically directed against Persian dynasties.[149] George III was the first Georgian king to assume these titles.[150] They were afforded mostly last place in the style, following the "King of the Armenians" title.[151] They later on would get corrupted, and original meaning be forgotten.[152]
The Kingdom of Abkhazia was afforded first place in the style as a memory of sequence of acquisition of authority by King Bagrat III, from being King of Abkhazia first and later on king of all-Georgia. The Georgian royal court was inspired by the Byzantine model of rule of law and the continued rendering of Abkhazia to the first place in the style of the Bagrationi kings was largely due to legal considerations. Also, as Abkhazia was under heavy Byzantine influence, the Georgian monarchs wanted to raise the status of the western region to such a high level to reflect the importance of this area to the Georgian realm. The court would have set up the majority of the royal residences mostly in the western regions of the kingdom, in Abkhazia and Imereti.[153][154]
Queen Tamar and Queen Rusudan were not afforded title "Sword of the Messiah" but "Champion of the Messiah". This circumstance doubtlessly reflect the fact that Tamar and Rusudan, although they were the mepe, they were not an actual heads of the army and battlefield leaders, by virtue of their gender.[155] It is noteworthy that Tamar was never depicted on frescos with a sword.[156] Despite the fact that The Georgian Chronicles explicitly state that when Tamar was recrowned after his father's death, "all by one consent joined in raising to Tamar her father's sword, bestowed on her at the same time as her father's throne", still none of the depictions of the queen show her carrying the sword. The chronicle would explain this by stressing Tamar's hatred of violence.[157]
Where the coins of his father, George II, and grandfather, Bagrat IV, had slavishly imitated Byzantine examples, David IV had taken over the imagery to glorify himself,[160] instead of Mother of God. Per Bagrationi symbolism Virgin Mary was a patron saint of all Georgia, her cult being established as the governing royal image of the whole kingdom. The coins issued by his forebears depicted a bust of the Mother of God on the obverse and inscriptions proclaiming the Byzantine titles of the kings on the reverse.[161]
Tamar's choice of terminology in Arabic derives from Islamic coins and was similar to known examples of coins minted by Mamluks in the thirteenth century.[162] Tamar's royal imagery had to cope with the diverse nature of her empire[163] as it had to accommodate both Christian and Muslim subjects, as well as many separate territories.[164] Her great-grandfather, King David IV, right after his victory in the Battle of Didgori and military reconquest of Tbilisi, would initiate universal minting of coins in Arabic for trade and economic reasons.[165] According to Ibn al-Azraq al-Fariqi and Sibt ibn al-Jawzi, David IV would mint the coins with his name alongside names of Allah and Muhammad.[166]
A shift toward an Islamic expression of power can be found in the adoption of new royal titles during the reign of King George III, when he, in 1170, added to his titles those of Shirvanshah and Shahanshah. This was the first evidence of these titles being adopted by a Georgian king and must have been taken over from the Shaddadids, whom George had defeated in 1161. Reign of George III can be seen to mark a decisive shift in the nature of Georgian power. Any expression of inferiority to Byzantine Empire had been ended by his grandfather, King David IV, who abandoned the use of any Byzantine titles, but took over Byzantine forms of imagery to promote himself as an independent power. Now George was establishing this more clearly by usurping titles of his rivals into his own as an expression of his dominance over them.[167]
According to David Marshall Lang, the British Museum acquired the coin from William Cole, 3rd Earl of Enniskillen.[169] The coin's museum number is 1857,1226.7. Its diameter is 35 millimetres and it weighs 10.8 grammes.[170] It is suggested that coin had been minted at Ani after David's conquest of the city.[171]
The "two thrones and/or kingdoms" refers to the de facto split and fracture of the unity of the monarchy during the Mongol invasions and establishment of the Kingdom of Western Georgia. The unified kingdom will ultimately collapsede jure in 1490. Some of the kings would continue including them in style even after an official fragmentation of the monarchy.[172]
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