Located in a transcontinental zone between Europe and Asia, Georgia has been dominated or otherwise divided by Western and Eastern powers for most of its history. Indeed, its occupation and partition goes back millennia. In the pre-Christian era, the kingdom of Kartli-Iberia, located in what is now modern day Georgia, experienced influences from the ancient Greeks to the West and the ancient Persians to the East. Throughout the first millennium, Georgia was divided between the Byzantine and Persian empires, though its adoption of Christianity in the early part of the millennium brought it closer to Byzantium culturally. Beginning with the reign of David the Builder, Georgia experienced a "Golden Age" in the 11th and 12th centuries, when foreign forces were driven out of the country and various kingdoms and principalities were brought unified into a Georgian state.