century, yet managed to maintain autonomy during the Mongol conquest of Crimea but was compelled to pay tribute to the Great Khan. In ca. 1223, the towns of Gothia may have been tributary to the Empire of Trebizond, and in the late 13th/early 14th century Mangup became the centre of the Principality of Theodoro, whose ruling elite maintained Byzantine traditions and the use of the Greek language. The ruling dynasty, stemming from the area of Trebizond, was called Gabras (in Greek) or Chowra (in Turkish). In the late 14th century, one branch of the dynasty emigrated to Moscow, where they established the Simonov Monastery. The Khovrins, as they came to be known, were hereditary treasurers of Muscovy. In the 16th century, they changed their name to Golovin. Between 1395 and 1404, Theodoro was under the control of Timur, but its prince, Alexios, managed to regain his independence after Timur's death, and his successors maintained it until the Ottoman conquest in 1475, thus ending the last remnant of the Roman Empire after 2228 years of civilization. In 1475, Stephen III of Moldavia sent his brother-in-law, Alexander Gabras, to Mangup with the purpose of replacing a local ruler from the Gabras family, who was Alexander's own brother and vassal to the Ottomans. In May that same year, the Ottoman commander Gedik Ahmet Pasha conquered Caffa and at the end of the year, after five months of besieging Mangup, the city fell to the assault. While much of the rest of Crimea remained part of the Crimean Khanate, now an Ottoman vassal, former lands of Theodoro and southern Crimea was administered directly by the Sublime Porte. After the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, many Greek-speaking Qaraites decided to migrate to the Mangup and Chufut-Kale as these places had a familiar Christian Greek culture. The Turkish historian Djennebi mention that in 1475, after the taking of Caffa, Gedik Ahmet Pasha decided to take possession of the fortress of Mankup. The Greeks established themselves therein and defended it but the Turks captured the fortress. The siege of Mangup lasted for half a year and the Turks used cannons. The town's inexorable decline continued. In 1774 the fortress was abandoned by the Turkish garrison. The last inhabitants, a small community of Karaims, abandoned the site in the 1790s. In 1901, a Greek inscription was discovered in the city. The inscription shows that in 1503, almost thirty