Agria 40. (Az Egri Múzeum Évkönyve - Annales Musei Agriensis, 2004)
Fülöp András: Adatok a siroki vár építéstörténetéhez
András Fülöp Information Relating to the Architectural History of Sirok Castle Sirok Castle, which may have been built by members of the Aba clan at the end of the 13 th century, is first mentioned in written sources in 1320, when Charles Robert occupied it during the conflict against Máté Csák. It subsequently remained a royal property right up until 1389 when it fell into the hands of the Tari family. After 1472 the castle was owned jointly by the Kompolt and the Guti Országh families, becoming the sole property of the latter family in 1511. The lower bastioned castle was built by Kristóf Országh, Lord Chief Justice and governor (ispán) of Nógrád County in 1562. Although the castle was occupied by the Turks between 1596 and 1687, its destruction should be dated to the end of the 17 th century and the beginning of the 18 th century. During the excavations led by Béla Kovács between 1965 and 1687 the entire area of the lower castle was uncovered, together with its immediate surroundings. Due to the construction of the road leading up to the castle in 2003 it became necessary to conduct archaeological investigations on the intended course of the path linking the new road with the castle. It was during the course of these investigations that the stockade to the north of the lower castle dating from the late 16 th- 17 th century came to light. The fortification, which is also mentioned in the inventory of 1687 was presumably surrounded by the wooden houses which had been built against the outside walls of the bastioned outer castle, the remains of which had been uncovered during the course of earlier excavations. For the moment we have only had the opportunity to probe the loosely defined extents of the 13 th and 14 th century upper castle. During the course of this we found proof that in the southeastern corner of the upper castle there had been a cellared palace wing laid out on an east-west axis, to which the openings positioned high up on the southeastern corner of the upper castle could have originally belonged. The cellar space in the palace wing was perhaps split up with the insertion of dividing walls in the second half of the 16th century, and therefore are possibly contemporary with the surviving vaulted section of the building known locally as the night-club (mulató), which is also more recent than the encircling walls. One could already get from the level of the lower castle to the upper castle during the initial period of the castle by ascending the stairs carved into the rock face. However, the areas leading off to either side of the stairs which led to the mulató area were added later. 162
