Firtuşu fortress

Firtuşu fortress is located in Lupeni commune, Harghita county, at an altitude of 1,042 m. It was raised on an approximately triangular plateau (95 x 70 m) protected by vertical slopes in the North, and accentuated on the other sides. The fortress also had a ditch and rampart to the South and Southeast.

The walls have different thicknesses (2 m to the East, 1.3 m to the West). The entrance was probably to the South. There is a chapel in the middle of the enclosure, which has a sanctuary in the shape of a horseshoe. The building date is considered to be in the 13th century, but it could have belonged to the minorities installed there between 1737-1780. Traces of several buildings appeared in the enclosure, on the Josephine topographic elevation.

Dating based on uncertain ceramic fragments show that they were made in the XI-XII century. In the Odorhei Museum there is only pottery from the XV-XVIII century.

Considering the absence of written sources, the fortress was subject to various historical scenarios, one of which claiming that it was a royal citadel before the colonization of the Szeklers. The toponymic clues suggest that the fortress also played a certain role in the 15th-16th centuries (1597).

Text and photo source: http://cetati.medievistica.ro/