He was David Soslan, an Alan prince, to whom the 18th-century Georgian scholar Prince Vakhushti ascribes descent from the early 11th-century Georgian king George I. David, a capable military commander, became Tamar's major supporter and was instrumental in defeating the rebellious nobles rallied behind Yuri.
According to Georgian scholar Ramaz Pataridze, the cross-like shape of letter jani indicates the end of the alphabet, and has the same function as the similarly shaped Phoenician letter taw, Greek chi, and Latin X, though these letters do not have that function in Phoenician, Greek, or Latin.
Many Georgian scholars, beginning with the philosopher Ioane Petritsi in the 11th century, have likened the three voices of Georgian polyphony to the Holy Trinity.
Some Georgian scholars have suggested that the Greek copyists of Arrian might have confused Chorasmia with Cholarzene (Chorzene), a Classical rendering of the southwest Georgian marchlands (the medieval Tao-Klarjeti), which indeed bordered with Colchis and Pontus.
In her great 1999 book, "The Georgian Feast," scholar Darra Goldstein says that any fewer than 20 pleats is considered unprofessional.
Another controversy regards the main influences at play in the Georgian alphabet, as scholars have debated whether it was inspired more by the Greek alphabet, or by Semitic alphabets such as Aramaic.
This tradition originates in the works of Koryun, a fifth century historian and biographer of Mashtots, and has been quoted in some Western sources, but has been criticized by scholars, both Georgian and Western, who judge the passage in Koryun unreliable or even a later interpolation.
His work earned him the reputation of a doctor of the church and the sobriquet "the Georgian Chrysostom," a reference to the 4th-century scholar-patriarch of Constantinople.
Most scholars link the creation of the Georgian alphabet to the process of Christianisation of a core Georgian-speaking territory, that is, Kartli (or Iberia in Classical sources).
The origins of the Georgian alphabet are to this date poorly known, and no full agreement exists among Georgian and foreign scholars as to its date of creation, who designed the script and the main influences on that process.
Despite this setback, Bagrat was able to become the first king of an all-Georgian unified monarchy, a result made possible largely by the efforts of David of Tao, who, as the modern scholar Stephen Rapp puts in, "appropriately ranks high on any 'Top Ten' list of Georgian history".
