Vardzia "...is a wonder. In inaccessibility it rivals Alexander's Wall and the Tower of Khyber..." — so wrote of Vardzia the chronicler of Persia's Safavid dynasty, the 16th-century historian Hasan Beg Rumlu, in the pages of his work "Ahsan al-Tawarikh" ("The Fairest of Histories"). It is established that the valley on both sides of the Mtkvari was densely settled as early as the Eneolithic; archaeological work on the terraces and hills has revealed monuments of primitive communal society of the Eneolithic-Bronze and Late Bronze epochs, including kurgan burials. The study of such monuments revealed the extent of the Trialeti culture. The "Kartlis Tskhovreba" contains direct evidence that the building of the monastery began under King Giorgi III and was completed in the reign of Tamar.