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Noviodunum fortress - the ruins of the fortress are situated at the eastern part of the modern town – at about 2 km, at the point named Eschi-kale (meaning “The old fortress” in Turkish). Located near one of the most important ford of the Danube, on an over 20 m high promontory, the fortress had, in different historical periods, a special military and commercial role.
Built as early as the first period of the Principality epoch, above an old Gaetic settlement, its name having a Celtic etymology, the fortress was, first of all, a base of the Low Danube Roman fleet Classis Flavia Moesica, then headquarters of some Legio V Macedonica and Legio I Italica detachments. It represented also an important crossing point. Here the military and commercial route coming from Marcianopolis through the center of Dobrodja crossed the Danubian limes. The early Roman fortress (I – III A.D.) was raised at the municipium position at the time of Severs. Many important buildings, situated on the Danube bank, are still visible: thermae, dwellings, fragments of the precinct wall, a tumular necropolis from I - III A.D. It was an urbane cosmopolitan center, its population consisting of soldiers, veterans and Romans or oriental Greeks civilians. The proper fortress was doubled by an ample civilian settlement surrounded by a defensive system consisting in three earth walls with groove. On the south-eastern platform the fortress necropolis pointed by numerous funeral hillocks, between them the huge hillock kurgan-vizir standing out, was placed. The fortress was distroyed by the attacks of the Goths and Heruli around the year 267. It was rebuilt, at smaller sizes, at the time of the emperors Aurelian and Probus. From this period, there were unearthed: the northern precinct with 7 semi-circular defense towers, the access gate to the harbor installation, thermae, a basilica, a big tower which surface is about 225 m² on the southern side of the fortress. The late fortress (IV – VII A.D.) stays all the period as headquarters of the Danube fleet, which name is now Classis Ripae Scythicae, and beginning with IV century headquarters for Legio I Iovia Scythica. The Christian hagiographic localize sources at Noviodunum a big number of martyrs (32 or 36), fact which shows the presence here of a strong Christian community. From this period a burial monument in a cross shape belonging to an IV century A.D. family was studied. For two centuries (the beginning of VII A.D. to the third quarter of X A.D.) the urbane life has declined. In the end of X A.D. and the beginning of XI A.D., the fortress took back its defensive function, the precinct being rebuilt by the Byzantines on the old Roman-Byzantine foundations. In the next period it was conquered by the Tartars and afterwards ruled by Mircea the Old. The Turks conquered it in 1420. At that time, the fortress walls have been destroyed. In the XVI A.D., up on the fortress, the Turks built a trapezoidal camp surrounded by a precinct earthwork wall which protected a garrison. Simultaneously, as early as XIII A.D., the core of the settlement has moved to the south, where a settlement named Isakdji (the name of the nowadays town Isaccea derives from it) had been founded, probably by the Tartars.


The grave of Issac Baba - considered the founder of the settlement. The grave is used for the Moslems’ ritual practices


Moslem Mosque – 300 years old, with a precious decoration sculpted in stone.


Orthodox Church “Sfântu Gheorghe” – elevated at the end of XVIII century or at the beginning of XIX century. The building possesses a high value wooden iconostasis dated in the period of Vasile Lupu (around 1645). The altar table has as base a burial monument from the Roman period.