# Three-Dimensional Reconstruction of the Early Christian Temples of the Roman Fortress of Pitiunt
## 3 Results and Discussion
1, situated 250 metres from the eastern wall of the original castellum, was constructed a century and a half earlier than the section of the wall directly adjacent to the castellum. This indicates that the construction of the eastern fortrification, known as the \"canaba\", can be attributed to the era of Emperor [PERSON] (late third century), when the fortress was rebuilt following a destructive raid on Pitiunt by the Goths and Borans in the middle of the third century. Consequently, it is plausible that the wall was already in existence at the time of Temple No. 1, particularly given the improbability of constructing a bishop's cathedral outside the fortress walls in the pagan land of Abazgia at that time. [PERSON] acknowledged this, yet failed to provide an explanation, maintaining [PERSON]'s opinion regarding the date of the construction of the wall [10]. Our analysis leads us to conclude that the representation of all the temples of the complex against the background of the canaba wall between fortress towers No. 3 and No. 20 is both legitimate and reasonable. Temple No. 1 is considered the oldest, with different authors dating it either between 313 and 325 CE [10] or immediately after 325 CE [11]. It is believed to have been the cathedral of the bishop of [PERSON], indicating that by 325 CE, Pitiunt had already formed a church organization headed by the city bishop [20]. The temple was discovered in 1973 during further investigations of the complex. All that remained of the church was the foundation, made of worked blocks of marine conglomerate. The temple is a simple form of Christian religious building, consisting of a hall with a single nave and a semi-circular apse on the eastern side. The apse, a semicircle without shouldering, continues into the long walls. There was no narthex or other parts. It is worth noting that in Hellenistic or Late Antique times, wide apses were not typical for buildings of this size, being more common in small funerary or memorial buildings. According to [PERSON] [10], the oldest church in Archaeopolis (Nokalakevi) had a very similar ground plan and dimensions. The architectural form of the apse-exedra in the church of Kolakert in Armenia is of ancient origin. It was attached to an ancient pagan building. This is also evident in the apse of Pitsunda Church No. 1, suggesting its antiquity [10; 28]. The temple was short-lived and was destroyed by fire. The temple's dimensions, obtained through photogrammetry, are as follows: the site's length along the east-west axis is 26.1 m, the width across the axis is 11.4 m, the western facade's width is 11.6 m, the southern wall's length is 21.6 m, and the northern wall's length is 20.9 m. A noticeable parallelogram of approximately 4 degrees is defined between the south and west walls. The inner hall measures 24.7 m in length and 10.0 m in width. The depth of the apse is about 4.2 m. From the foundation plan and the width of the hall it can be deduced that the dimensions of the temple were chosen from a 100 ft module divided into thirds. The proportion of the naos, excluding the apse, is nearly 1:2. Temple No. 1 has relatively thin walls of 0.7 m. Due to the single nave construction and the building width of 11.4 m, a stone vault is unlikely. The ceiling is thought to have been wooden trusses covered by a tiled roof. Some authors have questioned the lack of intermediate supports due to the large span between the long walls. For example, [PERSON] [12], in his analysis of the similarity between the Nokalakevi church and Temple No. 1 at Pitiunt, suggested that both structures had two rows of wooden supports, because the width of 11.0 m in the light was too large for a continuous covering. However, the foundations of such supports, which were preserved at Kolakert, were not found at Pitiunt. It is worth noting that the archaeological reports of the Bichvint expedition with regard to Temple No. 1 do not contain all the necessary information. There is no information on the discovery of the remains of the floor.