Gonio fortress

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Aerial view
Remains of the bathing building
Inside of the fortress

The fortress Gonio ( Georgian გონიოს ციხე ), ancient Apsaros , is a Roman fortress in Georgia , in the Autonomous Republic of Adjara , in the municipality of Chelvachauri , near the village of the same name . It is located 15 km south of Batumi and 4 km from the Turkish border on the beach of the Black Sea , near the mouth of the Chorochi River .

The oldest reference to the fortress comes from Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia 6, 4 from the 1st century AD. In the Greek and Roman sources, Gonio is known by the name Apsaros or Apsaruntos ; so it appears, among other things, as an important intermediate station Apsaro on the road from Trabzon on the Black Sea on the silk road to the east in the late Roman road map Tabula Peutingeriana . The current name Gonio comes from the 12th century. The Greek name corresponds to that of the brother of the Colchian king's daughter Medeain the Greek Argonauts legend of Jason and his search for the Golden Fleece.

In the 2nd century AD, Apsaros was a well-fortified Roman city and port in the Georgian Empire of Colchis . There was also a theater and a hippodrome in the city . Later Gonio came under Byzantine influence. There was also a Genoese trading factory near the town .

In 1547 Gonio was occupied by the Ottomans . They held the city until 1878. This year was Adjara by the San-Stephano-contract part of the Russian Empire .

The ground plan of the fortress is a rectangle measuring 195 × 245 meters. Each side has an entrance gate. The wall is secured with 18 towers. The towers in the corners are bigger. The Gonio fortress was built of stone.

literature

  • ვ. იაშვილი: გონიოს ციხის ისტორიისათვის, ქართული მატერიალური კულტურის ძეგლები აჭარაში . ბათუმი 1958. (Georgian; German: W. Iaschwili: For the history of the fortress Gonio, Georgian cultural monuments in Adjara Batumi 1958.)
  • ი. სიხარულიძე: აჭარის მატერიალური კულრუტის ძეგლები . ბათუმი 1962. (Georgian; German: I. Sicharulidze: Materialle Denkmäler in Adjara . Batumi 1962)
  • I. Sicharulidze, P. Sakaraia: Georgian Soviet Encyclopedia , Volume 3, Tiflis 1978, p. 218 (Georgian).
  • Angelika Geyer (Ed.): New research in Apsaros, 2002–2003 (= Jena Research in Georgia 1). Logos, Tbilisi 2003, ISBN 99940-762-9-9 .
  • Emzar Kakhidze: Apsaros. A Roman Fort in Southwestern Georgia. (PDF) In: PG Bilde, JH Petersen (Ed.): Meetings of Cultures in the Black Sea Region: Between Conflict and Coexistence (= Black Sea Studies. 8). Aarhus 2008, pp. 303-332.

Web links

Commons : Gonio  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 41 ° 34 ′ 23 "  N , 41 ° 34 ′ 25"  E