Uplistsikhe

(the Fortress of the Lord), a cave city located 10 km east of the city of Gori in the Georgian SSR, on the left bank of the Kura River. First settled in the early first millennium B.C., Uplistsikhe became a powerful city and fortress of the eastern Georgian kingdom of Kartli (Iberia). Beginning in the ninth century, it was one of the most important cities in Georgia, and for a time was its capital. In the 13th century it was destroyed by the Mongols.

Uplistsikhe consists of a group of dwellings hollowed out from the rock. It has a number of buildings dating from ancient times, for example, a hall with a vault ornamented with coffers, and a church of the three-aisled basilica type dating from the tenth and 11th centuries.