A Georgian tradition first attested in the medieval chronicle Lives of the Kings of Kartli ( ca . 800 ) , assign a much earlier , pred @-@ Christian origin to the Georgian alphabet , and names King Pharnavaz I ( 3rd century BC ) as its inventor . This account is now considered legendary , and is rejected by scholarly consensus , as no archaeological confirmation have been found . Rapp consider the tradition to be an attempt by the Georgian Church to rebut the earlier tradition that the alphabet was invented by Mesrop Mashtots , and is a Georgian application of an Iranian model in which primordial kings are credited with the creation of basic social institutions . Georgian linguist Tamaz Gamkrelidze offer an alternate interpretation of the tradition , in the pre @-@ Christian use of foreign scripts ( alloglottography in the Aramaic alphabet ) to write down Georgian texts .