Country Of Georgia In Its Golden Age Analysis

By Gulnari Giunashvili
[e-mail]
02.11.14

Country of Georgia in its Golden Age

In XII-XIII centuries Georgia (in native language “Sakartvelo”) began to shape into centralized state and achieved highest level of its economical, social, political and cultural development. This period was named by the Georgian historians as The Georgian Golden Age. It starts with King David the Builder and his clever political tactics. (1)

In 1099 King David took an advantage of Crusade and stopped paying the tribute to Seljuk Turks. Georgian militants took part in Crusade as a true Christian country. Afterwards King separated Church from the secular authorities and punished many of the clergymen publicly.

New post system was arranged, as
Irrigated areas were in good conditions for gaining the productivity of the land. It is noteworthy that at that time of increased productivity, only sowing areas did not enlarge, but the farming intensification was developed, lands were artificially fertilized, which is an indicator of economic progress. Great importance was wide use of “Gutani” which is a plowing machine and it is proved that kind of machine was created by Georgians and then spread in Caucasian
While in XII-XII centuries these new towns become twice bigger and people started living in city type of settlements. Some Eastern travelers reported that, in the twelfth century, Tbilisi (Capital of Georgia) had several score of public baths provided with natural warm sulfur water, and that the inhabitants used these baths free of charge (Theses bathes are still in working conditions). Paved roads led to the towns.

With well developed agriculture, handicraft production was also promoted. Big part of the urban population consisted of merchants and artisans. The wealthy merchants controlled the caravan-trade in the country, conducted trade-transactions and directed the merchant-organizations.

To protect their rights artisans united in guilds. There were brick-layers, stone-masons, carpenters, cabinet-makers, casters, potters, glass-blowers, goldsmiths, jewelers, embroiderers, tailors, blacksmiths, book-copyists, parchment-and paper-makers, bookbinders, artists, bakers, cooks, plumbers, millers, boatmen, barbers and so on.