Several historians consider that a city on this spot was founded by the ancient Dacians, who lived in what is now modern Romania, Moldova, and portions of Ukraine. Historians claim that the founders named the settlement Petridava or Klepidava, which originate from the Greek word petra or the Latin lapis meaning "stone" and the Dacian dava meaning "city".
Middle ages
Modern Kamianets-Podilskyi was first mentioned in 1062 as a town of the Kievan Rus' state. In 1241, it was destroyed by the Mongol Tatar invaders. In 1352, it was annexed by the Polish King Casimir III, and became the capital of Podole Voivodship and the seat of local civil and military administration. The ancient castle was reconstructed and substantially expanded by the Polish kings to defend Poland from the southwest against Ottoman and Tatar invasions
Modern times
During the Khmelnytsky uprising (1648�58), the Jewish community there suffered much from Chmielnicki's Cossacks on the one hand, and from the attacks of the Crimean Tatars (their main object being the extortion of ransoms) on the other.
After the Treaty of Buchach of 1672, it was briefly part of the Ottoman Empire and capital of Podolya eyalet. To counter the Turkish threat to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, King Jan III Sobieski built a fortress nearby, Okopy ?wi?tej Tr�jcy ("the Entrenchments of the Holy Trinity"). In 1699, the city was given back to Poland under King Augustus II the Strong according to the Treaty of Karlowitz. The fortress was continually enlarged and was regarded as the strongest in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The preserved ruins of the fortress still contain the iron cannon balls stuck in them from various sieges.
A 1691 French map depicting the city's old town neighbourhood and castle, surrounded by the winding Smotrych River
About the middle of the 18th century, Kamenets-Podilskyi became celebrated as the center of the
