Hovadar (Huder) Castle :: ARMENIAN HISTORICAL MONUMENTS

Hovadar (Huder) Castle

Iran / Western Atrpatakan / Salmast / Havdur

Location

A fortress called Hovadar (or Huder) used to stand 2 km north-west of Havdur, “on the mountain range of Babarzan (it was impregnable from this direction), in the north of Salmast.”

Ararat, no. 3 (1892), p. 204.
Karapetian. Samvel, History of Armenia, Salmast, vol. 2, Yerevan, 2019, p. 290.

Historical Introduction

The site preserves the remnants of some chambers and of the foundations of the fortress ramparts. Besides, two rock-cut Urartian (9th to 6th centuries B.C.) sepulchres are entirely preserved here. A number of rock-cut, time-worn steps lead to the first of these funerary chambers, a regular rectangle in plan consisting of two sections (dimensions: 10.55 x 9.56 metres; height: 190 cm) and having an entrance in the north. In the central part of the sepulchre, there is a well which is supposedly 4 metres deep (at present it is filled with earth).

Payman, no. 68 (2014).
Karapetian. Samvel, History of Armenia, Salmast, vol. 2, Yerevan, 2019, pp. 290-291.

The other sepulchre (dimensions: 9.55 x 6.17 metres) is smaller and irregular in plan. It has four sections of almost equal dimensions, three of which branch off the main one in different directions.

Karapetian. Samvel, History of Armenia, Salmast, vol. 2, Yerevan, 2019, p. 291.

A cutting tool of obsidian which is about 15 thousand years old has been found in the fortress site. It is certainly the handiwork of human beings. The abundance of pottery pieces in the site shows that the fortress remained inhabited until the High Middle Ages.

Ahrenjani, pp. 74-77. Also see Dilmaghani, p. 683.
Karapetian. Samvel, History of Armenia, Salmast, vol. 2, Yerevan, 2019, p. 291.

Author Samvel Karapetian
Date 2011 y․