Home
Tri Kule
Click on the photos to see an enlarged version
Map of some of the important archaeological areas of the Danube Iron Gates Defile.
Photo: Adrian Gheorghe 2007
This fortress controlled a curve of the Danube Iron Gates Gorge. Since the construction of the Iron Gates Dam, only the tops of its towers still emerge out of the water
It is interesting to compare this modern photograph with the old etching. It is obvious that the Danube has silted up a great deal since the Iron Gates Dam was constructed. The two top towers are still in reasonable condition, but the third tower has been reduced to just a square foundation, and the rest of the construction has disappeared.
Photo: http://www.poze-romania.com/
Tri Kule
The name Tri-Kule or Tri Kule comes from the Romanian word "Kula", a kind of fortress made by a single high tower, as can be seen in many places in Gorj County, for defence, like a small castle, as well as the Romanian word for three, "tri".
Photo: Adrian Gheorghe 2007
Tri Kule
The name Tri Kule comes from the Romanian word for three, Tri, because there were three towers in the original fortress. One of the three towers, to the south, is now usually covered by water, except at low dam levels, when its foundations are exposed.
Photo: Adrian Gheorghe 2007
Tri Kule
This important site is about 50 km west of Orsova.
Dr Gheorghe interviewed an old man who said that the castle was built with rocks and stones brought from a mountain about 2 km away to the north, from hand to hand, by many people who worked on the project.
He also said that when they began to build Tri Kule, the stones were cemented with mortar into which they put an entire shipload of eggs, which accounts for the resistance of the towers to the water, because of the mortar made using eggs.
Photo: Adrian Gheorghe 2007
Tri Kule sign
Photo: Adrian Gheorghe 2007
Tri Kule
Around the old Tri Kule there are other walls, now mostly under water, but telling of other fortress constructions in the area, making a much larger total construction of fortifications against the expansion of the Turks.
Photo: Adrian Gheorghe 2007
Foundations near Tri Kule
Photo: Adrian Gheorghe 2007
Another middle ages fortress, at Cozla, at about 10 km west from Tri-kule, also under water.
Here may also be seen the undermining of the foundations by the action of the acidic water of the Danube.
It may be that there was a chain of castles, made in the middle ages by romanian people to defend the country against the Turkish army.
Photo: Adrian Gheorghe 2007
Home
Alexis Project Filiasi/Romania
RC J/263/230/2007 CIF 21464151
Email: [email protected]