The Gonio fortress in
Georgia is situated near the Black Sea resort of Batumi. It is a village
fortress on 4.5 hectares in the town of Adjara, 15 kilometres from Batumi,
towards the Turkish border.
Previously called the
Apsaros fortress it is the oldest fortress in Georgia – the name is said to
have originated from the ancient Greek myth about Jason and the Argonauts in
the ancient Colchis Kingdom. It was the place where King Aet’s son Apsyrtus,
killed by Jason, was buried. The river Chorokhi was previously call the
Apsaros/Akamphsis/Harpasos river.
The Gonio-Apsaros
Archaeological-Architectural Reserve Museum – its full title – was built in the
13th-8th centuries BCE. It also the tomb of the Apostle Mathew, one of Jesus
Christ’s twelve disciples. The legend indicates that after Christ’s death,
Mathew travelled with St. Andrew and St. Simon Canaanean (Zelot) to the Gonio
fortress to preach. It was in this location where he died.
First a Roman fortress,
there were five supplementary reserve troops stationed in the fortress, which
is about 1,200-1,500 soldiers. It was later used in the Byzantine period. In
1547 the Ottoman Turks captured the Gonio-Apsaros fortress. In 1878, the
region, including the fortress, was under the protectorate of the Russian
Empire.
The total length of
the wall is 900 metres, and is five metres high. There were initially 22
seven-metre-high towers along the perimeter, but 18 remain. It had four
entries/exits, but only the western entrance is intact. The fortress contained
Roman baths, military barracks, a sewerage system, water reservoirs, and wells.
An archaeological
excavation is still underway, and scientists continue to reveal more items,
such as pots, drinking vessels, beads, rings, necklaces, glass bottles,
spearheads, and other tools. The Georgian government changed its status to Reserve
Museum in 1994.
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