Dashtadem Fortress

Armenia, Armenia

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Dashtadem Fortress, also known as Qagheni (Kagheni) Fortress or sometimes Talin Fortress, is a substantial medieval fortress on the southern outskirts of Dashtadem village in the Aragatsotn Province of Armenia, about 5 km south of Talin and roughly 50 km west of Yerevan at the southern foot of Mount Arteni.

The site is built on the foundations of an older Urartian stronghold, with the earliest known Armenian phase dating to the 7th century under the noble Kamsarakan dynasty, and later largely rebuilt and expanded in the 10th–12th centuries by the Zakarian family and again in the 19th century under the Qajar khans of Yerevan, giving it a very long and layered construction history.

Unlike many Armenian castles that exploit natural cliffs and ridges, Dashtadem is not on particularly inaccessible terrain, so its defence relies on massive artificial fortifications: an outer octagonal enceinte with eight bastions and curtain walls built in the early 19th century, and an inner decagonal wall surrounding the main keep and a 10th‑century chapel of Surb Sargis (St. Sergius), with the keep itself consisting of four semi‑circular towers from the 12th century set on earlier 10th‑century foundations, plus large underground cisterns and tunnels.