Gupis Fort

The Gupis Fort is a rectangular building, with either circular or square watchtowers on all four corners. The main entrance door faces a village farming area and the Ghizir River. The forts south overlook village orchards and the Gilgit-Chitral road, and its west the Gupis stream. Unlike other forms of its kind across Gilgit -Baltistan, the Gupis Fort is located on rather low laying ground, which may indicate that the fort was used for storage instead of defense. All four watchtowers consist of three floors, each floor used for different purposes, ranging between storage, residence, and surveillance. These watchtowers are connected to each other through a series of pathways traveling through the residential rooms. The forts outer defensive wall, of varying height and 1.2 m thickness, is built with dressed stone and timber bracing, and the fort itself is made of wood, mud and stone. Gupis fort is divided into different sections corresponding to a different era of construction, one of which contains rooms corresponding to the official hierarchy, with the lowest-level room allotted to junior cadets, the middle- level to senior officers, and the topmost portion, containing barracks, to soldiers. There is also a courtyard at the center of the fort.