Zemplín Castle – its remains are still preserved in the Hradisko (Várhegy) location in the village of the same name. The first historical source in which the castle is mentioned is the medieval chronicle Gesta Hungarorum in the early 13th century. On a parchment preserved from the third quarter of the 13th century we read mention of Zemplín Castle in two places. In chapter 13 about the escape of the administrator of the castle Uh (castrum Hung) Laborec to the castle Zemplín (castrum Zemlum) and in chapter 14 about the messengers of the Bulgarian ruler Salan, who crossed the Bodrog at the castle Zemplín (castrum Zemlin).
We can see that the chronicler (or the author of the transcript) had a problem in capturing the name of the castle twice in the same way in such a small section of the work, but the location of the castle is given accurately. Its remains above the Bodrog river crossing are still visible today, the crossing was still functioning in the 20th century, the castle gave its name to the surrounding village, the Commune, the county and the whole region. Since the 13th century it has therefore appeared regularly in documents in various forms. On the first unadulterated documents from 1219, 1220 as castrum Zemlun (that is why we have chosen this shape as representative), later Zemlin, Zemlyn, Zemlen; only from the 14th century the consonant “p” was added in the middle of the shape – Zemplyn, Zemplen, Zemplén, Zemplin. The inconsistency in the spelling of the castle’s name indicates that it was originally a folk name of the local Slavs, denoting the timber-clay (earth) character of the fortification.
Since 2014, the archaeological research of the Monuments Office staff has focused on the discovery of a brick object – apparently a gate in the northeastern part of the mound. This is the discovery of two masonry structures (walls), built into the existing timber-clay rampart, opposite each other at a distance of 10 m. In the space between them, the remains (negatives) of two more walls were discovered in the 2021 season, thus identifying the plan of the presumed gateway.
