Visiting Armenia, try to include Amberd fortress into your program!
This fortress was a family estate of Pahlavuni dukes. Supposedely the castle was built in the VIIth century by the Kamsarakans, an Armenian noble family. Later the castle passed into the hands of a celebrated Armenian commander Vaghram Pahlavuni. Still later Bagratuni brothers, Armenia rulers of tha time, bought Amberd from Pahlavuni and made it the main advanced post fortress of their kingdom. The fortress fell in the XIIIth century under attack of the Mongols, who burnt everything that could burn and destroyed many stone structures.
The fortress was errected on the cape in the junction point of two rivers. Amberd’s impregnable walls are assembled of big basalt blocks. Their only decoration were plates of highly glazed pottery, which were built into the stones under the merlons of the turrets. According to the legend these plates were striking the evil eye of a stranger with their glitter.
The water supply was well considered and reliably planned. Water was coming from mountain springs upper in the mountains. There are water collection systems with dams that were accumulating water of melting snows and supplied the fortress with it. In case of siege the fortress had two big water reservoirs. And in case of emergency the fortress inhabitants could use a secret underground passage that leads to the Amberd river.
In 1929 archaeologists discovered a bathhouse in the Amberd castle. It consisted of two medium-size rooms. Hot air was arriving to a small room under the stone plates to warm the walls, and when cooled, going out by clay tubes. One of the bathrooms had a water reservoir – a prototype of a stone bath, where hot and cold water was arriving by separate tubes from an external water supply system.
In 1026 by order of the celebrated Armenian commander Vaghram Pahlavuni one of the most refined Armenian churches was built near the castle.
Excavations discovered many artefacts, brought to Armenia from many other countries, bith Western and Eastern. Bronze lamps, incense-burners, mortars, wrecks of earthenware, toilet bottles, expensive bowls, decorated dishes and jugs.
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