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Tibareni


The Tibareni (Georgian: ტიბერია, Tiberia. Greek Τιβαρηνοί, Tibarenoi; Tubal, Thobeles in Josephus) were a people referred to in Herodotus, Xenophon, Strabo and other classical authors. These three tribes still neighbored each other, along the Black Sea coast of Anatolia (ancient Pontus), as late as in Roman times. Tibareni, along with the other Proto-Georgian tribes were subjugated by the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th-5th centuries BC and were incorporated into the XIX Satrapy.

They are often identified with Tabal, a Neo-Hittite kingdom of South Central Anatolia which formed during the early Iron Age.

They could have relations with pre-Sumerian mesopotamian city of Bad-Tibira, known as "Fortress of the Smiths" as Tibareni are one of the Kartvelian tribes which were early metalsmiths.


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