Khor Virap

This guide to Khor Virap outside Yerevan asks what could keep a man alive for thirteen years alone in a stone pit six meters down, fed only on bread lowered by rope. That man was a young nobleman named Gregory, thrown into the shaft by King Trdat the Third over old blood between their families and Gregory's refusal to worship the royal court's goddess. While Gregory sat in the dark, the king began falling apart, seized by fits so violent that his own sister started dreaming of the forgotten prisoner below.