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In the middle of the village
of Dashtadem, a left turn leads almost immediately to the arched
gateway to the fortress.
Most of the outer circuit wall dates to the last Qajar
khans of Yerevan, at the beginning of the 19th c.
However, the fortress is considerably earlier.
The keep within is a bizarre structure, with half-round
towers glued onto an earlier Armenian fortress probably of the 10th
c. Beneath the citadel are substantial cisterns.
There is also a chapel of S. Sargis beside it, dated to the
10th c. An
elegant Arabic inscription in Kufic letters on the E wall of the
keep reads: “May
Allah exalt him. In the
blessed month of Safar in the year 570 (September 1174) the lord
of this strong fortress, the Prince, the great Spasalar, the
Pillar of the Faith, the Glorifier of Islam, Sultan son of Mahmud
son of Shavur.” Sultan
ibn Mahmud, known to Arab historians under the Persian name
Shahanshah, was the last of a fascinating clan of Kurdish
adventurers, the Shaddadids, who entered Armenian history in 951 at the city of Dvin.
This was a period of political chaos, and the Christian and
Muslim citizens of Dvin, fearful for their women and property,
invited Muhammad ibn Shaddad and his little tribe to stay and
protect them as contract warlords.
Soon driven out of Dvin, the Shaddadids performed the same
services for the Muslim folk of Ganja in Azerbaijan, where they
established themselves as emirs. Until
1030, they intermittently ruled at Dvin as well. They intermarried
with the Bagratid princes of Armenia, and seem to have coexisted
with their Armenian subjects. After considerable difficulties with the invading Byzantines,
the Shaddadids welcomed the Seljuk Sultan Alp-Arslan effusively in
1067, offering him the
keys to Ganja and most
of their treasure. |
