The Dvals were an old people in the Caucasus, their lands lying on both sides of the central Greater Caucasus mountains, somewhere between the Darial and Mamison gorges. This historic territory mostly covers today’s South Ossetia, a breakaway region of Georgia and part of North Ossetia-Alania, Russian Federation, as well as some neighboring lands in Georgia’s historic regions of Racha and Khevi.

PropertyValue
dbpprop:abstract
  • The Dvals were an old people in the Caucasus, their lands lying on both sides of the central Greater Caucasus mountains, somewhere between the Darial and Mamison gorges. This historic territory mostly covers today’s South Ossetia, a breakaway region of Georgia and part of North Ossetia-Alania, Russian Federation, as well as some neighboring lands in Georgia’s historic regions of Racha and Khevi. The name of the Dvals comes from the old Georgian annals, their land called Dvaletia (დვალეთი. Dvalet`i) after them. Although the real ethnic identity of the Dvals remains obscure, they are hypothesized to have spoken a language related to the Nakh group. The Dvals are sometimes tentatively linked to the Talae, Valae or Ualae of Pliny the Elder and Ptolemy who placed them in Sarmatia Asiatica. Christianity began to spread among the Dvals in the mid-6th century, under Georgian influence. They were regarded as vassals of the Georgian crown and paid a tribute, while the Georgian kings fortified their fortresses and mountain passes securing the strategic “Dvaletian road”. When the Mongols destroyed, in the 13th-14th centuries, the Alanian kingdom in the Northern Caucasus, the Ossetians migrated towards and over the Caucasus mountains, forming in part of Dvaletia their community called Tualläg. The Dvals (known to the Ossetians as Tualta) were pushed sothward and, as a result, the process of their assimilation within the Georgians and Ossetians accelerated and was completed by the early 18th century. The term Dvaleti(a), retaining only a geographic meaning, then narrowed to refer solely to the area around the Kudaro valley in the west. Their ethnonym may have survived as the surname Dvali, occasionally encountered in Georgia. The most prominent Dvals were, perhaps, the 11th-13th calligraphers – John, Michael, Stephen, and George – who worked at various Georgian Orthodox monasteries abroad, chiefly in Jerusalem and at the Mount Athos, and created several fine examples of old Georgian manuscripts, e.g. The Months and The Vitae of St Basil (John the Dval, circa 1055), and the so-called Labechini Gospels (George the Dval, 13th century). The Orthodox church venerates also the memory of St Nicholas of Dvaletia, a Dval or Ossetian monk from the Georgian monastery at Jerusalem, who was martyred, on October 19 1314, at the order of Amir Denghiz for having preached Christianity .
  • La Dvalètia o Dualètia o Dvalèthia és una regió muntanyosa situada al nord de la Ratxa, i al sud d'Ossètia. El 1695 el rei Artxil va ocupar el tron d'Imerètia però el nobles el van deposar el 1696 i es va retirar a la Dvaléthia. El 1698 amb ajuda dels ossets va derrocar Giorgi Gotcha, però els turcs van enviar un exèrcit, va tornar a fugir a Dvaléthia i més tard va passar a Moscou.
dbpprop:hasPhotoCollection
rdf:type
rdfs:comment
  • The Dvals were an old people in the Caucasus, their lands lying on both sides of the central Greater Caucasus mountains, somewhere between the Darial and Mamison gorges. This historic territory mostly covers today’s South Ossetia, a breakaway region of Georgia and part of North Ossetia-Alania, Russian Federation, as well as some neighboring lands in Georgia’s historic regions of Racha and Khevi.
  • La Dvalètia o Dualètia o Dvalèthia és una regió muntanyosa situada al nord de la Ratxa, i al sud d'Ossètia. El 1695 el rei Artxil va ocupar el tron d'Imerètia però el nobles el van deposar el 1696 i es va retirar a la Dvaléthia. El 1698 amb ajuda dels ossets va derrocar Giorgi Gotcha, però els turcs van enviar un exèrcit, va tornar a fugir a Dvaléthia i més tard va passar a Moscou.
rdfs:label
  • Dvals
  • Dvalètia
owl:sameAs
skos:subject
foaf:page
is dbpprop:redirect of
is owl:sameAs of