GeorgiaOfficial tourism
Rustavi old

Where Bronze Age walls guard Iberian memory

Rustavi old

Why go

Rustavi Old rises from the steppe as one of Georgia's most layered archaeological sites, its earthworks preserving Bronze Age settlement traces alongside a medieval fortress of the Iberian era, with construction phases spanning the 5th-8th, 9th-11th, and 12th-13th centuries. This was no remote outpost: it anchored the southern approaches to the kingdom of Iberia, the same civilization that would forge Georgia's identity. The burial mounds (kurgans) scattered across the site have yielded goldwork, weaponry, and ritual objects that now fill museum cases in Tbilisi. What makes the journey essential is the rare chance to walk terrain where Bronze Age settlers, Iberian nobles, and successive empires all left their mark—three millennia of Caucasian history compressed into one windswept ridge.

On the ground See

  • The medieval fortress walls, built in phases between the 5th and 13th centuries, still tracing the old city's perimeter
  • The kurgan burial mounds, some excavated and others still intact, where nobles were interred with horses and bronze artifacts
  • The Rustavi Historical-Ethnographic Museum, which displays finds from the site including Bronze Age artifacts and Iberian ceramics

Practical Know before you go

Best visited spring through autumn; site lies 5km from central Rustavi, reachable by taxi from Rustavi-2 metro station or marshrutka to Bolnisi with request stop—no formal visitor center, so hiring a local guide through the museum is advised.

Last reviewed 25 August 2026 · reviewed quarterly