ALAZONES

Homer and Herodotus locate the "Halizones"/"Alizones" both in Aliba ("Aliba" is the country of the Chalybes, Lubes, in fact) and in the Ukrainian Black Sea region. That is, on the opposite shores of the Black Sea. But Strabo already honestly admits that "Alizons" and "Alazons" are the same nation. And Homer equates both of them to the Chalybes. The key word for understanding the relationship of all these peoples is "Alazones". This is not the name of a nation. Homer, Herodotus and Strabo did not speak "barbarian" Kartvelian languages, so they did not know that "Alazona" is, in fact, "A Lazona", ("The Lazona"), "the country of the Laz". The nation itself is not called "the Alazones", but simply "the Laz". Thus, the Halizons, Alizones, Alazones all are just Laz; the Chalybs are also Laz; and all of them, together with the Megrelians, are Zans. That is, Kartvelians from a linguistic point of view.