Currently a small provincial capital, for nearly a millennium until the 5th century AD, Mtskheta was a large fortified city and a significant economic and political center of the Kingdom of Iberia.

[3] As the birthplace and one of the most vibrant centers of Christianity in Georgia, Mtskheta was declared the "Holy City" by the Georgian Orthodox Church in 2014.

[6] Numerous burials of the Bronze Age (beginning of the 1st millennium BC) prove that Mtskheta already was a significant settlement at that period.

The chronicles mention that the Kingdom of Iberia and its capital were conquered by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC, but certain historians do not accept this.

Both the excavations and The Georgian Chronicles tell about considerable construction in the Hellenistic period: residential houses, palaces and fortifications.

In late 2nd - early 1st century BC, king Parnajom strengthened his relations with Persians and invited Zoroastrian priests to settle in Mtskheta.

The latter king is associated with the appearance of the first Christian communities in Kartli and the arrival of the Holy Tunic to Mtskheta, brought from Jerusalem by local Jews.

A gravestone dated between the late 4th and early 5th centuries, found in Samtavro necropolis, contains an epitaph in Greek, telling about the main architect and archizograph (artist) of Mtskheta Aurelius Acholis.

In the first years after the conversion of Georgia into Christianity, a small wooden church was built in the center of the city, later to become Svetitskhoveli Cathedral.

[citation needed] Mtskheta suffered tremendous damage during the Umayyad Caliphate's defeat of the Khazars between 736 and 739, and again when Timur conquered the area in the 15th century.

Samtavro necropolis, a burial place north of the monastery, is dated between the middle of the 3rd millennium BC and the 10th century.

[6] The Historical Monuments of Mtskheta were on UNESCO's List of World Heritage in Danger, citing "serious deterioration of the stonework and frescoes" as the main threat to the site's long-term preservation.