 A Georgian tradition first attested in the medieval chronicle Lives of the Kings of <unk> ( ca . 800 ) , assigns a much earlier , pre @-@ Christian origin to the Georgian alphabet , and names King <unk> I ( 3rd century BC ) as its inventor . This account is now considered legendary , and is rejected by scholarly consensus , as no archaeological confirmation has been found . <unk> considers the tradition to be an attempt by the Georgian Church to <unk> the earlier tradition that the alphabet was invented by <unk> 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 <unk> <unk> offers an alternate interpretation of the tradition , in the pre @-@ Christian use of foreign scripts ( <unk> in the Aramaic alphabet ) to write down Georgian texts . 
