In Classical sources the Svans are referred to as Soanes

Georgia Museums, Svaneti Museum of History and Ethnography, Mestia, Georgia

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In Classical sources the Svans are referred to as Soanes (Strabo, XI, 2, 14; XI, 2, 19), Suanis (Pliny, NH, VI, 14), Soanocolchians (Claudius Ptolemy, Geogr., V, 8,25), who even then dwelled in the Caucasus mountains, it was the Svans that have preserved the technique of obtaining gold from the river by means of sheepskins. This technique, which may have become one of the real bases of the origin of the myth of the Golden Fleece, has been described by European travellers, as e.g. in the 17th century Arcangelo Lamberti, in the 19th century Frederic DuBois De Montperreux, and in the 20" century Tim Severin. The scarcity of gold objects in the archaeological record of Svaneti may be accounted for by the following fact: Svaneti supplied the Colchian centres, along with other metals with gold where, in particular in Vani and Sairkhe, the large number of specimens of Colchian goldsmithery discovered, is acknowledged proof of "Colchis rich in gold".

Today's Svans are the descendants of the ancient Kartvelian tribes, while the Svan language was the first to separate from the common Kartvelian parent language, more than others preserving the archaic features. The disintegration process of the parent language and it's break-up into Svan and Georgian-Zan unity is assumed to have commenced towards the end of the 3" millennium B.C.

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In Classical sources the Svans are referred to as Soanes

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Source:  Mestia, Georgia