Samsvilde

Samshvilde’s etymology was first recorded by the tenth-century Armenian chronicler Hovhannes Draskhanakertzi, which means “three arrows” in Georgian, ^[2] from Sami (“three”) and Mshvildi (“bow”). In fact, the toponym is built across the geographic circumference of Georgia and means “[place] of the arch”. ^{[2] [3] [4] [5]}

Background

Samsvilde is concentrated on a natural fortified place, rocky terrain at the confluence of the Jrami and Civchavi rivers, 4 km south of the city of Tetri Tskaro . Archaeological Expedition 1968-1970 She discovered two layers of Buro-Kura-Araxism culture in Samshvild , on the southern slopes of Mount Karnkali, which date from the middle of the fourth millennium BC and the third millennium BC, respectively. This horizon included a place of settlement and a cemetery, as well as a round religious building. The following items were discovered: bronze age ceramics and various obsidian instruments. ^{[6] [7]}

Antiquity

According to the medieval Georgian Chronicles , Samsvilda was formerly known as Orbi, a castle whose foundation was attributed to Kartlos, the mythical ethnarch of the Georgian Kartli, ^[8] . ^[9] and which was found strongly fortified, but besieged and conquered by Alexander the Great during his alleged campaign in Georgian lands. ^[9] In the 3rd century BC e. under the kings of Kartli, known in the Greco-Roman world as Iberia, Samsvild became the center of the kingdom’s units, ruled by eristavi (“duke”), first appointed by Farnavaz , the first in the traditional list of Kartli kings. ^{[10] [11] [12] [1]} King Archil (c. 411-435) gave Samswild in addition to his son Mihrdat , who then succeeded on the throne of Kartli. The Georgian chronicle ascribes to the Iranian wife of Mihrdat Sagdukht, converted to Christianity, the construction of the Sioni church in Samsvild. ^{[12] [1]}

Middle Ages

The borders of the duchy of Samsvilda have changed throughout history, since the southern part of this hero was often disputed between Kartli and the neighboring kings of Armenia . ^[13] The city itself remains one of the key settlements of Iberia. Together with Tbilisi and Mtskheta, Samshvilde is one of the three main cities of this country in the 7th century Armenian geography of Anania Shirakatsi . ^{[8] An} 8th-century Georgian inscription in the Sioni Church, in the Asomtavruli script, mentions two people from the house of Pitiahsh, a local Iranian-style dynasty that seems to have owned Samsvilda. At that time, the area around Samsvilde fell under the influence of the newly created Muslim emirate, in the center of which was Tbilisi, the former royal capital of Kartli. ^[1] Currently, Samswilde has been disputed by several rulers of Georgia, Armenia and Muslims. ^[15]

Around 888, Samsvilde was occupied by the Armenian king Baghdad Smbat I of Armenia , who commissioned the city to lead the two brothers of the Gntuni family, Vasak and Ashot. The brothers turned out to be uncontrollable, and Smbat's successor, Ashot II , was to restore his allegiance by force of arms c. 915. ^[16] Vasak Gntuni was still rebellious and, c. In 921, he forced the Georgian prince Dao Gurgen II to leave the desert, which led to the fact that King Ashot besieged the fortress. When the force sent by Gurgen entered the citadel, a confrontation broke out between him and the people of Wasak who were in the fortress. In a later confrontation, the surviving soldiers of Gurgen were captured and mutilated, while Samsvild again submitted to the Armenian king. ^{[17] [5]}

In the last decade of the tenth century, Samshvilde switched to the Kuyrikids, the Bagratid Armenian guarantee line of the Kingdom of Tashir-Dzoraget , which chose it as its capital. Because of this, David Anholin , king of Tashir and Dzoraget, was named Samsvildari, that is, “Samsvild”, a medieval Georgian author. In 1001, David unsuccessfully rebelled due to the hegemony of his uncle, King of Armenia Gagik I , who devastated Tashir during the three-month campaign, Samsvilda and the plain of the Georgians (Vrach'dast), as the historian Stepanos Asogik referred to the surrounding area. ^{[18] [19] [20]}

Samsvilde served as the capital of Kuyrikid until a member of this dynasty, Kürike II, was captured by King Bagrat IV of Georgia and had to escape, delivering Samsvilda to the Georgians in 1064. ^{[21] [22]} The son of Bagrat, George II (king of Georgia) | George II transferred control of the city to his powerful vassal, John I, Duke of Kldekari, thereby buying his allegiance in 1073. ^[23] After about a year, Samshvilde was conquered by the Seljuks under Melik Shah I | Melik Shah ^[24] and remained as his advance in Georgia until 1110, when Bishop George of Chkondid besieged and captured the city in the name of King David IV from Georgia . ^{[25] [26]} This prompted the Seljuks to hastily evacuate most of the surrounding areas. ^[15] David granted Samswild to his loyal commander Ivan Orbeli in 1123. The city remained in the possession of the Orbeli clan, the hereditary commander of the Kingdom of Georgia, until the crown lost it due to a failed uprising. n against George III of Georgia , during which an army loyal to the king stormed the fortress in 1178. ^[1]

Decline

Samsvilde was attacked by the Mongol invaders on the way to Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, in 1236. In March 1440, he was sacked by the leader of Kara-Koyunlu Jahan Shah , indignant at the refusal of Alexander I to submit to Georgia. sovereignty. According to the modern historian Thomas of Metsof , Jahan Shah captured the besieged city “by deception” on the day of Pentecost and destroyed its population by constructing a minaret of 1664 human heads cut off at the city gates; Sixty Christian priests, monks and nobles were sentenced to death for refusing to backslide. Even some of those who agreed to abandon Christianity were not saved. The survivors were to seek refuge in the dense forests around Samshvild. ^[27]

The city never recovered from this blow and lost its former significance, with the exception of its function as a peripheral fortress29. After the final collapse of the Kingdom of Georgia in the 1490s, it became part of the Kingdom of Kartli . , In 1578, Samsvilde was occupied by the Ottoman army under the leadership of Lala Kara Mustafa Pasha during his victorious campaign in Georgia, but in 1583 he was returned by King Simon I from Kartli. In 1636, Rostov from Kartli awarded Samsvilda in the possession of his treasurer Shiosh Khmaladze, and in 1693 Irakli I from Kartli transferred it to the noble family of Baratashvili . ^[28]

Samsvilda gained relative importance in 1747, when the Georgian Muslim prince Abdullah-Beg used Lezghin mercenaries and fortified the Samsvilda fortress in his attempts to challenge the Kartli possessions, which his Christian relative Teimuraz II used. The projects of Abdullah Beg were foiled by the son of Teymuraz , Heraklion , who attacked Samsvild and made a captive plaintiff in 1749. The city was left in the hands of Abdullah Beck's younger brother, Hussein Beg, who in 1751 surrendered to Heraklion II from Kartli-Kayeti and was relocated to Tbilisi. ^[28]

Archaeological sites and architectural monuments of Samsvilda are listed in the national heritage of Georgia as the city of Samsvilda (სამშვილდის ნაქალაქარი). Archaeological research of the Samschwilde area began in 1948, and systematic efforts to improve the conservation of this site began in 1978. ^[28] In the 2000s, the construction of major international pipelines in the region led to new archaeological projects and the discovery of new prehistoric finds. ^{[29] [30]} Many of the late medieval and early modern structures were further explored by the Samsvild archaeological expedition organized by the University of Georgia in Tbilisi from 2012 to 2015. ^[31]

The urban area occupies an almost triangular area on the cape at the confluence of the Khrami-Chivchavi and is divided into three main parts. The citadel is in the east, on the steep end of the cape, and the city is in the west, between them is a fortress. The site includes the ruins of several churches, the citadel, palaces, houses, a bridge over the Chivchavi River, water tanks, baths, a cemetery and other auxiliary structures. ^[32]

A small church room St. George is located in the city itself. The Georgian inscription, lost in 1672 and published by E. Takaishvili, identifies a woman named Zilikhan, the former caretaker of the wife of King Vakhtang V Kartli, as a renovator of the church. ^[32]

Within the walls of the fortress is a small stone church of the Assumption , which contains a large prehistoric black menhir full of candle flame, with a cross and Armenian text on which Prince Smbat is mentioned, on which is written. in the eleventh century. The Khrami River is overlooked by another church, known as Theogenida, probably built in the 12th or 13th century, near which there is a structure of four large stones - tetralite. ^[32]

The citadel is formed by walls, towers and three large churches. Among them, the domed church of Sioni, now in ruins, is the most recognizable monument of Samsvild. The medieval tradition attributes its construction to Queen Sagduhta of the 5th century, but the existing building dates back to approx. 759-777, as the best-preserved Georgian inscription on the eastern facade suggests, which contains references to modern Byzantine emperors Constantine V and Leo IV of Yazarsky . There is another Georgian inscription, very damaged, almost illegible on the southern facade and next to it is an Armenian fragment that identifies the Armenian Catholics of Gevorg III Loretsi (b. 1069-1072). The strict architectural forms of the Samsvilde church reveal a close connection with the design of the 7th century Zromi church in Shida Kartli . ^[33]

To the west of Sioni there is a basilica with three naves, probably an Armenian church built of dark basalt stones in the tenth or eleventh century. The third temple is a design of a church room with an outstanding apse and an inscription on the wall in Georgian, which refers to King of Georgia David IV (p. 1089-1125). ^[33]

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