# Tsebelda Fortress (Tsibilium)
- URL: https://explore-georgia.ge/en/places/tsebelda-fortress
- Type: place to visit
- Region: Abkhazia
- Coordinates: 43.025, 41.266667

The Tsebelda fortress stands in the village of Tsebelda in Gulripshi Municipality, on two cliffs rising more than 400 metres above the gorge of the Kodori. It is an architectural complex of watchtowers, church buildings, the ruins of a palace, a necropolis and various defensive works. The fortress dominated the junction of three main routes that came down from the Eurasian steppe over the passes to the Black Sea. The surviving structures are identified with the Tzibile or Tsibilium of the classical authors, above all Procopius of Caesarea; it is counted among the most important fortifications of early medieval Georgia, with a major part in the defensive system of the Kingdom of Egrisi. At the beginning of the last century fragments of fresco painting were found during the study of one of the fortress churches; the Kelasuri Wall crosses the Kodori near the Tsebelda fortress.

Excavation of the fortress cemeteries revealed the "Tsebelda culture", the late antique and early medieval archaeological culture of the Apsilians. The graves were first dated to the first–fifth centuries, but they cease only at the end of the seventh or the beginning of the eighth, as a result of the Arab invasions. In 1960–1962 more than a hundred graves were excavated, six of them of horses: 82 per cent are inhumations in elongated rectangular pits, the dead laid on their backs with their heads to the north-west or south-west, while the rest are cremations whose ashes were placed in two-handled red clay urns. The grave goods include single- and double-edged swords, daggers, the axes characteristic of Tsebelda, arrowheads and shields, fibulae, glass vessels and beads, amphorae, a jug with an early Christian cross and Roman silver coins bearing the images of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian and Antoninus Pius; a rich burial excavated there yielded Byzantine coins of Justinian I, which overturned that dating. Many of the finds are kept in the Sukhumi State Museum.

## History

In the sixth century Tsibilium was the chief fortress of Apsilia, a vassal principality of the Kingdom of Lazica (Egrisi). Around 550, during the Lazic War, the Laz noble Terdetes betrayed his king Gubazes and handed the fortress to the Persians; the Apsilians retook it but refused to accept Lazic rule until the Byzantine general John Guzes persuaded them. The life of the fortress and its cemeteries ceases at the end of the seventh or the beginning of the eighth century, in the age of the Arab invasions.

The modern history of the site begins in 1959, when a local schoolboy, later the noted archaeologist and Caucasologist Yuri Voronov (born in Tsebelda in 1941), collected and saved from destruction more than a thousand objects of the Tsebelda culture, among them spears, axes, jewellery, glass and clay vessels. From 1960 Mikhail Trapsh's expedition began systematic excavation of the cemetery at the "Hat" (Shapka) fortress; the first full publications appeared in 1970–1971, and in 1986 the monograph by Voronov and Oleg Bgazhba, "The Chief Fortress of Apsilia". Georgian law treats the monument as cultural heritage in the occupied territories; in July 2019 it was granted the status of an immovable cultural heritage monument. In January 2017 Georgia, followed by the United States Mission to the OSCE, accused the Russian military of putting the site at risk of destruction: a nearby nineteenth-century Polish cemetery and a church were demolished to build a shooting range; the de facto authorities confirmed the damage, while the Russian Ministry of Defence denied any involvement.

## Visit info

Tsebelda lies east of Sukhumi in the Kodori valley, some thirty kilometres by road; the fortress cliffs rise above the village. Ask local people about the way up and the conditions on the site before going. The objects of the Tsebelda culture are displayed in the Sukhumi State Museum.

Abkhazia is an occupied territory. Under Georgian law entry to the region is lawful only through the Enguri crossing; entry from Russia is a breach of Georgian law. Check the current conditions of movement before travelling.

## Tips

The Tsebelda fortress fits into one route with the Kelasuri Wall and the Dranda cathedral. Before going, look through Voronov and Bgazhba's "The Chief Fortress of Apsilia".

## Safety

The cliff edges are unguarded and drop 400 metres into the gorge. A Russian military shooting range lies near the fortress: avoid that zone and ask local people. Consular assistance in the occupied territory is limited.

## Sources

- [Tsebelda Fortress — Georgian Wikipedia](https://ka.wikipedia.org/wiki/წებელდის_ციხე)
- [Tsebelda fortress — English Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsebelda_fortress)
- [Tsebelda culture — English Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsebelda_culture)
- [Tsebelda culture — Russian Wikipedia](https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Цебельдинская_культура)
- [Tsebelda fortress — Wikidata](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q28937321)

## This page in other languages

- [ქართული](https://explore-georgia.ge/ka/adgilebi/tsebeldis-tsikhe)
- [Русский](https://explore-georgia.ge/ru/mesta/cebeldinskaia-krepost)