Pharnavazid dynasty

Pharnavazid dynasty
Claw foot of the presumably Pharnavazidthrone, 1st century, Georgian National Museum
Country	Kingdom of Iberia Colchis Kingdom of Armenia
Titles	King of All Iberia King of Colchis Great King of the Iberians King of Armenia
Founded	3rd century BC
Founder	Pharnavaz I
Final ruler	Amazasp II Aspacures I (through female line)
Ethnicity	Georgian
Cadet branches	Arsacid dynasty of Iberia (through female line)

The Pharnavazid, Pharnabazid or Parnavazianni (Georgian: ფარნავაზიანები, ფარნავაზიანნი) is the name of the first dynasty of Georgian kings of Kartli (Iberia) preserved by The Georgian Chronicles. Their rule lasted, with intermissions, from the 3rd century BC to the 2nd century AD. The main male line is reported to have become extinct early on and followed by houses related to it in the female line. By the close of the 2nd century AD, the Pharnavazid rule came to an end and the Arsacid Dynasty took over the crown of Iberia.

According to the early medieval Georgian chronicle, The Life of the Georgian Kings, the dynasty descended from Pharnavaz I, the founder of the Kingdom of Iberia, who ousted Azo, a ruler allegedly left by Alexander the Great to govern the country. Pharnavaz, whose story is saturated with legendary imagery and symbols, is not attested directly in non-Georgian sources and there is not definite contemporary indication that he was the first of the Georgian kings. However, the Georgian dynastic tag Parnavaziani ("of/from/named for Parnavaz"), which the early Armenian histories have preserved as P’arnawazean (Faustus 5.15; 5th century) and P’arazean (Primary History of Armenia 14; probably the early 5th century), is an acknowledgment that a king named Pharnavaz was understood to have been the founder of a Georgian dynasty. It seems more feasible that as the memory of the historical facts faded, the real Pharnavaz "accumulated a legendary façade" and emerged as the model pre-Christian monarch in the Georgian annals.

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