Ateni
Ateni ( Georgian ატენი ; ɑtʼɛnɪ ) refers to two villages in the municipality of Gori in the Inner Kartli region in Georgia . Patara Ateni ("small Ateni") and Didi Ateni ("large Ateni") are located in the picturesque valley of the Tana, a right tributary of the Mtkvari south of Gori .
Patara Ateni is a wine-growing place that begins about three kilometers after the settlement boundary of Gori and extends for a good two kilometers along the road. 6.5 kilometers from Gori, on the left side of the road, you can see the small Ateni Church within a walled district. It was built in the 7th century and expanded in the 9th or 10th century. The most famous building in the valley is the Sioni Church, built in the early 7th century in the Didi Ateni district, eight kilometers south of Gori. The road continues up the mountain on the valley slope and ends around 25 kilometers southwest of the city at Kvemo Boshuri at an altitude of 1130 meters.
Didi Ateni was mentioned in chronicles in the 9th century as a city and expanded in the 11th century by the Georgian King Bagrat IV . Three fortresses on the hills once secured the valley: Ateni, Were and Dekziche. From the 13th to the 17th century, Ateni remained an urban center, the importance of which gradually declined in the 18th century.
literature
- D. Berdsenishvili: Georgian Soviet Encyclopedia. Volume 1, Tiflis 1975, p. 666
Coordinates: 41 ° 54 ′ 0 ″ N , 44 ° 6 ′ 0 ″ E