|
There a road angles right through
the village, ending
at the spectacular fortress
of Lori (“Lori Berd”).
This was the capital of David Anhoghin (989-1049) of the
Tashir-Dzoraget Kingdom, and was a feudal center of the Kyurikian
family. It was taken over by the Orbelian lords of Georgia in the
early 12th c, then came under the sway of the Zakarian
brothers Ivane and Zakare.
When the Mongols arrived, Lori Berd was the capital of
Shahnshah, Zakare's son. Historian
Kirakos Gandzaketsi described its fall:
Chaghatai,
the commander of all the detachments of the pagans, heard about the
fortification of the city of Lorhe and about the abundance of
treasures in it, for located there were the home of prince Shahnshah
and his treasury. [Chaghatai] took with him select weapons and many
siege machines, and in full readiness he went and settled in around
[Lorhe], besieging the city. Prince Shahnshah took his wife and
children, secretly went into the valley there and secured them in
a cave. He gave superintendence of the city to his father-in-law['s
sons] but because they were weaklings, they spent their time
eating and drinking and getting drunk, trusting in the strength of
the city walls, and not in God.The enemy arrived. They dug at the
base of the walls and made them collapse, then settled around them
and kept watch so that no one would flee. Now once the inhabitants
of the city saw that [the Mongols] had taken the city, they began to
crowd with fear and filled up the valley. When the enemy saw that,
they started to enter the city and indiscriminately cut down men,
women, and children taking their goods and belongings as
booty. They discovered the treasures of prince Shahnshah which he
had extorted and robbed from those he subdued. [He had] constructed
there a sturdy treasury which no one could see, since the mouth of
the pit was so narrow that treasures could be cast in, but nothing
could be removed. They killed
Shahnshah's father-in-law['s sons] and they did reconnaissance
around all the fortresses in the district taking many both by
threats and by treachery. For the Lord gave them into their hands.
|
Surrounded E, S, and W by the sheer gorges of the Dzoraget
and Urut rivers, the N side of the promontory is protected
by a massive stone wall with multiple towers. Preserved inside the fortress are two baths, the one
on the W edge with complex clay piping inside the masonry. A rectangular roofed structure
incorporating various
medieval tombstones and Christianized by a couple of flanking khachkars, has no E apse but rather a shallow niche
in the S wall facing Mecca, a reminder of Muslim
occupation of the fortress till the 18th c.
Lori Berd is attested as being inhabited under the
Russians, but few traces are left of its recent history. A medieval bridge over the Urut is reached by a steep
and winding boulder-cobbled path from the gate, but only one
pier base is left of a second bridge over the Dzoraget. |
|
