Burdukhan of Alania

Burdukhan of Alania was queen consort of George III of Georgia and the mother of Tamar the Great, the first woman to rule Georgia in her own right. A daughter of Khuddan, king of the Alans, whom the Georgian sources call Ossetians, she continued the alliance between the Bagrationi and the Alan royal house begun by Alda and Borena in the eleventh century, and through her Tamar's later marriage to the Alan prince David Soslan was reckoned a union with kin on her mother's side. The anonymous Histories and Eulogies of the Sovereigns states that Demetrius I, during his own reign, brought Burdukhan as a bride for his son George; modern historians place the marriage in the 1150s. The chronicler praises her extravagantly: she was "like the sun among suns in terms of her beauty," she "loved the righteous and showed mercy to the guilty," and in devotion to Christ he compares her to Saint Catherine and to Penelope who became Saint Irene. The Life of Tamar in the same collection says that God granted George a child by "his crowned wife, Burdukhan," as Samuel was granted to Hannah. That child was Tamar, born about 1160, though some sources suggest 1166. A second daughter, Rusudan, is mentioned only once in the sources of Tamar's reign, and her existence is not certain. Burdukhan appears at her husband's side in one great public moment. When George III assembled the representatives of his kingdom to have Tamar crowned as co-ruler, in 1178, he "invited also the Queen of Queens, his happy spouse Burdukhan, as well as his daughter Tamar." Her name is also preserved on the icon of the Theotokos of Khobi and in an inscription at Ruisi cathedral naming her as a benefactor. She died before her husband, who passed away on 27 March 1184; the exact year is not recorded. After her death Tamar's upbringing fell to her paternal aunt Rusudan, who later brought David Soslan to court. Tamar, on her accession in 1184, was described by her chronicler as born of "Giorgi's wife Burdukhan, daughter of the King of the Ossetians, the one who, besides being Tamar's mother, exceeded all the other virtuous women in all respects."