MTSKHET  , a decayed

town of Russian Transcaucasia, in the government of Tiflis, 13 M. by rail N.N.W. of the city of Tiflis, at the confluence of the Aragva with the Kura, at an altitude of 1515 ft . Pop . (1897), 1221 . One of the oldest places in Georgia, it was the capital of that country until supplanted by Tiflis in the last year of the 5th century A.D . The most ancient seat of the Georgian kings was the castle of Arma-tsikhe, Armasis, or Harmozica, crowning a hill opposite to Mtskhet . The most memorable relic of the latter is the cathedral, said to have been originally founded in the 4th century, though the existing building dates from the 15th century and was restored in the 18th . In the graveyard attached to this convent graves have been opened which yielded objects of the Iron and Stone ages, and others of the era of the Roman emperor Augustus .