Samuilova krepost pri Belasica - istorija i archeologija: = Samuil Fortress near Balasitsa - history and archeology
Gespeichert in:
| 1. Verfasser: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Buch |
| Sprache: | Bulgarian |
| Veröffentlicht: |
Sofija
Ivraj
2015
|
| Schlagworte: | |
| Online-Zugang: | Abstract Inhaltsverzeichnis |
| Beschreibung: | Zusammenfassung in englischer Sprache |
| Beschreibung: | 182 Seiten Illustrationen, Karten |
| ISBN: | 9789549388671 |
Internformat
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| 245 | 1 | 0 | |a Samuilova krepost pri Belasica - istorija i archeologija |b = Samuil Fortress near Balasitsa - history and archeology |c Svetana Komitova |
| 246 | 1 | 1 | |a Samuil Fortress near Balasitsa - history and archeology |
| 264 | 1 | |a Sofija |b Ivraj |c 2015 | |
| 300 | |a 182 Seiten |b Illustrationen, Karten | ||
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| 600 | 0 | 7 | |a Samuil |c Bulgarien, Zar |d -1014 |0 (DE-588)119238829 |2 gnd |9 rswk-swf |
| 650 | 0 | 7 | |a Schlacht von Kleidion |0 (DE-588)104551294X |2 gnd |9 rswk-swf |
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Datensatz im Suchindex
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| adam_text |
SAMUEL’S FORTRESS IN BELASITSA ֊
HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY
Summary
The motivation for writing the book is one thousand years since the final
battle of the Bulgarian Tsar Samuel for the independence of the Bulgarian State
and one thousand years from his death.
The work is dedicated to the remarkable scholar - archaeologist Dimka
Stoyanova - Serafimova - the first researcher of the stronghold over the hill of
Samuilova Krepost (Samuel’s Fortress) in the village of Klyuch, Petrich region
becoming an outpost of defense of the country a millennium ago. In the course
of 7 years, with inherent zeal and responsibility to work she explored the field
where the memorable battle took place on July 29th 1014.
The following lines describe the turbulent events of the last days of the
First Bulgarian kingdom and the fabulous personality of Tsar Samuel. They are
grounded upon the narratives of Byzantine writers some of them contemporar-
ies of this time of unrest.
The most complete and detailed data about these events, Samuel taking
the power and his rule, the crucial battles led for decades as well as about the
final desperate attempt to keep the territorial borders and independence of the
Bulgarian State ֊ the battle in the defile of Klyuch, come from the chronicle of
John Skylitzes. In the course of 811 - 1057 it was literally copied by still another
Byzantine writer, George Cedrenus, thus both writings are read in parallel.
These chronicles describe Samuel and his brothers coming to the political scene
of Bulgaria as follows: Right after the death of Emperor John (Tzimiskes) the Bulgarians
rebelled and chose four brothers to rule over them: David, Mosses, Aaron and Samuel,
sons of one of the mighty Komeses (well-known, distinguished man who occupies a prom-
inent position in society) in Bulgaria and for that they were known as Kometopouloi.
Further on, just in a few lines the authors present a rather clear picture of the
Bulgarian Tsar Samuel who “.became an autocratic sovereign of all and of
his reign: He was a martial man who did not know rest and while the Romaic forces were
engaged in the fights against Skleros, he ruthlessly invaded all the Western areas not only
in Thrace, Macedonia and the vicinities of Thessaloniki but also Thessaly, Hellas and
Peloponnesos. He captured many fortresses as the major one among them was Larissa.
The Byzantine chroniclers tell of a tsar who by victorious wars, peace
agreements or political marriages managed to include the majority of the Balkan
Peninsula within borders of his state.
169
The book emphasizes on the most comprehensive presentation of the re-
sults of the long-term archaeological research of D. Serafimova, grounded on an
analysis of the detailed documentation she has left.
The earthen fortification known to the local population under the name of
Samuel’s Fortress has been constructed over a hill not very high, along the right
bank of Strumeshnitsa River (initially known as Struma River). The height of
the hill provides the opportunity to watch and control the entire vicinity. Most
probably this came to be the reason for its transformation into a central core of
a system of blocking structures closing Klyuch Gorge between the high slopes of
Belasitsa south of Klyuch and the slopes of Ograzhden Mountain.
What prompted the Bulgarian Tsar Samuel to undertake the construction
of such a grandiose fortification? In the late 10th - early 11th c. the chronic hostili-
ties between Byzantium and Bulgaria came to a decisive turn. The initiative in
the war taken a quarter of century long by Samuel then passed into the hands of
the Byzantine Emperor Basil II who took the offensive pursuing his plan to con-
quer Bulgaria. “ The Emperor did not cease penetrating into Bulgaria every year as
he devastated and ruined everything along his path, .he seized many Bulgarian
fortresses and fields and left there his own guards.”
Realizing the ambitions of Basil II to regain the former Byzantine domains
in the Balkans taken away by the Bulgarian kings, “and because he knew that the
Emperor usually comes through the so called Kimba Long and Kleidion (Klyuch
of today), he (Samuel) decided to reinforce the defile and to block the access to the
Emperor. So he built a very broad wall. and waited for the Emperor.”
The construction of defensive structures has been confirmed also by the
chronicle of Georgius Monachus Continuatus: “And the leader of the Barbarians
(Samuel)., full of anger and delusion, blocked the defiles and passes with walls at
some places, and somewhere else with ropes and timber, and made artificial ram-
parts. He made the barriers with the intention to prevent the Emperor to find his
way and to escape. There, between Romania and the Bulgarians, was a field and
large rivers, and large, high and abrupt mountains covered with snow. There was
only one exit which he blocked and left a strong guard.”
The analysis of the written sources gave grounds to Dimka Serafimova to suppose
the wall had been constructed in the narrowest sector of the gorge and it seems logical
to look for traces of such defensive structures between Klyuch village and Ograzhden
Mountain. After numerous field surveys and observations in the area of Klyuch village
and Strumeshnitsa, she supposed that the hill of Samuels Fortress “is just one link of the
fortification system closing Klyuch Gorge probably in the final decades of the age of the
First Bulgarian State. During the field surveys D. Serafimova registered some remains of
trenches and other fortification structures as their nature matched the data of the histori-
cal sources. They begin from Belasitsa, from the modern Klyuch village, cut the Medi-
170
eval gorge of Kleidion, reach the Samuels Fortress along Strumeshnitsa River, continue
over the slopes of Ograzhden Mountain at the current locations of Gorelite Barchini and
Meterizo, and then their traces disappear. Later Dr. Boris Tsvetkov and Ass. Prof. Dr.
George Mitrev explored the same terrain and in turn registered some ruins of fortifica-
tions - walls, towers and surviving sectors of ramparts, which they analyzed and inter-
preted. According to B. Tsvetkov the main core of this defense system, grandiose in size
and too complicated in design, was the fortified camp near Klyuch village, in Bozalak
and Leshkite sites, and the central command strategic post was over the hill of Samuels
Fortress providing an excellent visual link with the entire defensive front.
The same hill comes to be the only one investigated sector of the complex
defense works between Belasitsa and Ograzhden. The main purpose was to clar-
ify the time and manner of construction of the fortification as well as its position
within the entire blocking line. The research preceded the arrangement of the hill
as a National Park - Museum in honour of the events from 1014 on the occasion
of the 1300th anniversary of the Bulgarian State. In memory of the Tsar and his
blinded soldiers a monument with museum has been set up. Its exposition con-
tains the archaeological artifacts discovered in the course of the investigations.
The work has revealed clearly that some early settlements existed on the
hill encircled by the ancient river of Pontos (Strumeshnitsa of today). The place
was inhabited as early as the Late Iron Age (6th- 3rd с. BC). The fragments of de-
stroyed walls made of stone fixed with mud belonged to a Thracian settlement.
They were registered within the sections of the inner earthwork. The concentra-
tion of quite a large amount of pottery in quadrants 8Г, 8Д and 8E dating from
the 5th - 1st с. BC in general gave grounds to D. Serafimova to suppose the settle-
ment had covered mainly the eastern slope of the hill.
The pottery from the Late Iron Age is hand - made and of a coarse fabric.
Its surface usually smoothed is brown in all its nuances - from light to dark
brown and often smoked. Single fragments dark grey in colour also appear.
The pots and jugs dominate in number. Their bottoms are flat, rather
dense, and often strongly underlined. The mouths are a bit curved inwards; their
rims are oblique also inwards and slightly growing thinner. Rarely appearing ves-
sels, mainly jugs and cups, have their mouth bent outwards and short necks, and
sometimes mouths with slightly profiled rims.
The handles display a greater variety as we distinguish four kinds of them: verti-
cal ones of an irregular round or rectangular section usually coming from the mouth
(of jugs) or slightly below it (of pots) to reach the most swelling sector of the body; hor-
izontal ones as the handles of a rectangular shape and section prevail although there
are also arched ones of a round or oval section. They come from the transition between
the shoulders and the most swelling part of the body, and stand rather vertically.
The most numerous group contains tongue-like handles in two variants:
171
with a round forepart and with a concave one obtained by pressing or incision.
They are usually at the most swelling sector of the vessel and as a rule are upturned.
Seldom they are horizontal or go downwards. Some of the handles are small-size
tongue-like or button-like to come only as a decorative aesthetic element.
The horseshoe-shaped handles range from arched to horizontal rectangu-
lar ones taking the upper sector of the pot below the rim or the field between the
mouth and the most swelling sector of the vessel.
The pots decorated with an embossed band are the most numerous ones.
The band might be with or without notches and usually appears in the upper sec-
tor of the vessel. One of the pots has its band shaped as a festoon.
Analyzing the characteristic fragments of pottery found in the lower layers and
having parallels with pieces from the Western Rhodope Mountains, Iliya Kulov re-
lates the earliest settlement to the earlier phases of the Late Iron Age (6th - 3rd c. BC).
Ruins of a house built of stone fixed with mud have been also revealed and
related to the Roman Age. Only the western sector of two rooms has survived. The
southern one was destroyed by a dugout house from the Middle Ages. The eastern
sector was damaged by graves of cottagers - refugees from Aegean and Vardar
Macedonia who settled down at the foot of Samuel’s Fortress Hill after 1018. This
necropolis seriously disturbed the stratigraphy of the terrain. The grounds for dat-
ing the house, albeit with some reservations, come to be the pottery fragments and
a coin of Antigonus Gonatus (277 - 239 BC) found on the floor of room 1.
The relatively great amount of pottery from the Hellenistic Age (4th - 1st c. BC)
as well as the coins of the Macedonian Kings Philip II (posthumous) (336 - 323 BC)
and Antigonus Gonatus, of Macedonia under the Roman domination minted in 168
- 167 BC, and autonomous coins of Macedonia from the 2nd c. BC provide reasons
enough to suggest the hill was inhabited also during the Hellenistic Age.
The pottery from the Hellenistic Age was concentrated in the same sectors
(northeastern area of the fortification) as the pottery from the Late Iron Age. The
collection contains the usual table ware - bowls, fish dishes, pots, jugs, pitchers,
kantharoses, etc. They belong mainly to the local production although after the
Greek shapes of the time. The pottery has been made of well purified clay mainly
red in colour; however some pieces of light brown and beige colour also appear
fired in an oxidized setting and for that reason leaving traces in touch. The shards
grey in colour are small in number. The surface has not been further processed
and there is not any coating of slip or varnish.
The dishes and bowls with a ring-like pedestal and a mouth curved in-
wards prevail. The bottom of fish dishes is concave inside and outlined by an
embossed edge. Some of the pots have their bottoms rounded and flat, hardly
distinguishable from the walls.
Among the liquid containers we have jugs with vertical handles of an oval section
172
coming out from the mouth; fragments of pitchers with high profiled rims and flat han-
dles with fluting; and the unbroken horizontal handles most probably belong to hydrias.
The fragments from kantharoses are red or dark brown in colour, and their
handles have stylized volutes in the upper sector. The pedestals are high, hollow
and profiled.
Similar pottery has been discovered in the necropolis in Metlata site near
Muletarovo village (Rupite of today) and in the course of the rescue archaeologi-
cal excavations along the Gotse Delchev - Drama road.
The coin finds and the analysis of the pottery prove that the intense life on
Samuels Fortress Hill continued during the Hellenistic Age as well. At the same
time the Thracian settlement kept close economic and cultural contacts with the
territories beyond Belasitsa.
According to D. Serafimova in the 8th c. the Slavs of Strumtsi tribe made
their own village on the hill. After the uprising in 837 against the Byzantine domi-
nation the village entered the young Bulgarian State. Further on she mentions that
the village was fortified with a rampart and moat. However, for the nature of her
work (a guide - book) she has not pointed to some specific data supporting the
above notion. The inner rampart that encloses the territory of the village has left
some remains above the ground visible at the beginning of the excavations. It is a
part of the earthworks of Tsar Samuel most probably constructed in the early 9th c.
The Medieval village densely built up with dugouts and semi-dugouts cov-
ered the highest point of the hill, lying over a terrace sloping from west to east
and from north to south. The displacement in both directions comes to 5 ֊ 6 m.
The village planning corresponds to the peculiarities of the terrain.
43 houses have been unearthed arranged in relatively correct lines almost paral-
lel to rampart I. They are located mainly along the inner eastern and western rampart
sides, and only three of them are on the north. The houses are 8 - 10 m away from the
fortress wall. In most of the cases their orientation is east ֊ west, although some of them
show a deviation to northwest - southeast. The distance between them is less - from
0,70 to 1,00 - 1,50 m, and seldom comes to 2,30 m. There is a narrow passage between
some of the houses once probably covered. This kind of an overbuilding is peculiar of
the Slavic planning tradition as we can observe it in all the investigated settlements in
Northern and Northeastern Bulgaria from the time of the First Bulgarian Kingdom.
A little free space (a square) has been left between the rows of houses in the
early Medieval village in Samuels Fortress. For some unknown reasons the most
flat area in the southern sector of the village has remained undeveloped.
The houses revealed are one-space rectangular in plan often irregularly
outlined. There are though exceptions - some of them are almost square. In most
of the cases they are small in size: 4 to 5,50 m long, and 2,75 to 4 m wide, as their
area varies from 8 to 25 - 30 sq. m in total. The houses are dug into the solid yel-
lowish rock and it seems impossible to fix their initial depth for the upper part
has been removed while leveling up the terrain before the construction of the
rampart. In D. Serafimova’s view the presumable depth of digging was 0,80 - 1,00
m below the then level of the terrain thus penetrating into the cultural layer of
the destroyed Thracian settlement.
House N 14 appears to be an exception for its size - 46 sq. m of area, as well
as for the depth of digging - 1,70 ֊ 1,80 m thus also crossing the cultural layer of
the Thracian settlement. It has been already suggested that this was the house Tsar
Samuel occupied in the course of the preparations and the battle itself. The idea
has been grounded on the written sources as well as on its location next to the only
one tower (watchtower) of the fortress. Houses of a similar size are not to be known
from other settlements from the early Middle Ages. Only two houses large in size
(46 sq. m and 30 sq. m) have been investigated in the fortress near Kladentsi village
thus coming close to house N 14. They have been also interpreted as belonging to
individuals standing higher in a social or administrative aspect.
Usually the entrance to the houses was from the east, in some cases cut
stepwise into the solid terrain. Sometimes crushed stones served as stairs. The
bed of a pillar of a ladder has been found in house N 5 cut before the house was
enlarged to the east. A similar bed has been revealed in the eastern wall of house
N14 also belonging to the ladder which they entered the house by.
The roofs were ridge in kind supported by wooden poles their beds cut into
the floor along the walls (one in the middle of the three or four walls) or rarely in
the corners. In some cases the beds can be traced also in the height of the dug sec-
tor of the wall. Some houses had their poles supporting the roof in the middle of the
longitudinal axis. In certain cases they were encircled by stones for a further support.
The lack of beds for poles along some of the walls gives grounds to D.
Serafimova to suppose that probably there was the entrance or the structure was
of an economic purpose if beds of poles are entirely missing.
The roofs were covered with soil or reed pressed down with boulders the latter
found on the floor of some of the houses. In some cases incompletely burned timber
from the roof has been also found on the floor. The tradition to cover the houses with
soil rather than with thatch is still kept on in some villages in Ograzhden.
In certain houses the dug part of the walls and probably the terrestrial part
as well were wattle work plastered with clay as chunks of plaster with traces of
rods have been found within the filling. Others were faced with timber, and there
were also houses with a single course single-faced wall made of large boulders.
In most of the cases the floor of the houses was uneven, cut into the sol-
id rock obliquely or stepwise and covered with tamped clay as seen in sectors
of preserved floor levels. In many houses querns for grinding wheat have been
found on the floor often burnt in the fire of the village. A mill-stone has been
174
revealed on the floor before the oven in house N 24. A quern was reused in the
stone pavement in front of still another house.
The heating structure - oven or fireplace, was an inalienable element of the
indoor space of the early Medieval houses. The ovens in the houses on Samuels
Fortress Hill were usually dug into one of the walls or close to one of the corners
their mouths facing the interior and often shaped with flat stones. Their construc-
tion employed large stones for the base and smaller ones above. However, the open
fireplaces or hearths in front of a niche ֊ flue are commonest for this village.
The condition of the ruins on the hill does not allow any reconstruction
of the terrestrial sector of the houses. House N 14 alone has been preserved to a
point to provide data enough to suggest such a reconstruction of a dugout type
of houses.
Almost all of the houses contained fragments of pottery peculiar of the 9th
- 10th c., the heyday of the Medieval village on Samuels Fortress Hill. More than
30 vessels mainly pots have been entirely restored. They have been made of brown
or grey clay with sandy inclusions and a large amount of mica. The pots have their
shoulders round, short necks and mouths bent outwards mostly terminating in
oblique or vertical round thickened rim. The bottoms are flat and rarely displaying
an embossed sign - a feature of the early Medieval pottery from the mid or late
gth _ i ph c circumstance comes as evidence that the majority of the pots were
shaped on a slow potters wheel. Usually they have not any handles, and if there are
some they are flat and oval in section, coming out of the mouth to reach the most
swelling or lower sector of the body. The walls bear incised decoration - straight or
wavy lines in groups covering mostly the upper sector of the pot.
Considering the construction, size, and the interior arrangement with the
heating structures in particular, the houses in Samuel’s Fortress do not differ signifi-
cantly from the ones revealed in Northeastern Bulgaria. The Medieval villages from
the 10th - 11th c. explored in the territory of Serbia display also similar features.
The coins from the days of John Tzimiskes (969 - 976) discovered within
the ash on the floors of the houses gives grounds to D. Serafimova to relate the
fire in the village to one of the military campaigns of Emperor Basil II.
In the late 10th - early ll[h c. an earthen fortification was raised over the
ruins of the village. It is known today as Samuel’s Fortress, a sector of the entire
fortification system closing the passes in Klyuch Gorge.
As a result of the research carried through in the final decades of the 20th c.
it became clear that the Old Bulgarian ramparts and earthen fortifications are not
amassed soil alone but constructions well planned and diligently accomplished.
Although the stronghold on Samuel’s Fortress Hill belongs to the type of
earthworks - camps forming a closed structure of various shapes and sizes, it
significantly differs from the ones investigated in Northeastern Bulgaria. The dif-
175
ferences come with its geographical and topographical location, its plan and also
the construction of the defensive elements.
It is composed of three ramparts and two moats arranged concentrically
over the steep slopes of the hill. It is an independent unit of the overall fortifica-
tion system.
The layout of the uppermost (the inner) rampart (I) running along the hilltop
surrounds an area of about 7,5 - 8 decares. Its shape is of an irregular quadrangle,
highly elongated in the northeastern corner. Complying with the configuration of the
terrain, the fortification is oriented north - south along the longitudinal axis. The
rocky ground steeply descending down to Strumeshnitsa River excludes any access
from the north. For that reason the lowest outer rampart is disconnected in this sector.
To clarify the kind, composition, manner of construction and chronology
of the earthworks, some transverse and longitudinal sections have been made
in certain sectors, as well as a section crossing all the three ramparts and both
moats in the southeastern sector of the fortification.
The ramparts are of a different construction and structure of the mound. Both
lower ones have been accumulated by soil without any cultural artifacts taken from
the hill and thus forming the moats. The width of their foundations varies between 10
and 12 m, and the height is about 2,50 m. The lowest rampart has been strongly erod-
ed in the course of time and now seems lower compared to both others. The natural
height of the hill creates an impression that the uppermost one is the highest as well.
The inner rampart I is of a different, more complex construction. It runs
over leveled up solid rock thus avoiding the need of reinforcing the base, a prac-
tice known from almost all the investigated ramparts in Bulgaria accumulated
over terrains of unstable soil.
In the course of the archaeological research it has been determined that be-
fore the construction of the fortification, the entire hill was leveled up. Its lower
eastern sector was filled with burned materials and pottery fragments taken from
the earlier settlements there - the Thracian one (6th ֊ 3rd c. BC), the Hellenistic
one (3rd - 1st c. BC) and the Medieval one (10th - 11th c.). Ceramic fragments from
the all registered ages of life on the hill are to be found in the cultural layers at
various depths including the soil of rampart I.
Rampart I has been risen taking soil from the nearby terrain. Its lowest layer
contains fragments of pottery from the Thracian settlement. The next layer is of ash
and burnt soil probably from the timber structures once at the top of the rampart.
Then follows a second accumulation of clay burnt red containing also boulders and
burnt timber arranged to form a grid (0,40 - 0,50 m one from the other) to make
the rampart more stable. The filling between the beams encloses fragments of pot-
tery from the ruins of the Medieval Bulgarian village. All the layers of burnt soil,
ash and fired clay mixed with ceramic fragments from the periods of life on the hill
176
are clear to distinguish them within the profiles formed in the sections.
The stone facing and the fragment of a wall at the base of the rampart
revealed in its northeastern sector have been made for greater resistance and to
hold the slide of the mound.
Upon the leveled up ridge of the rampart I a stone structure was raised like a
fortress wall of crushed stone and boulders fixed with mud as only certain sectors
of it have been investigated. For the condition of the ruins and the lower level of
preservations in particular, we have not sure answers for the original height of the
wall and its uppermost configuration. The width of its base is 2,15 - 3,10 m. It lies
over a grid of longitudinal and transverse beams arranged at different distances
depending on the stability of the terrain. The external face of the wall is difficult to
read as for that reason only the inner face has been traced at certain spots.
Analyzing the nature and manner of construction, D. Serafimova con-
cludes that the wall very much reminds of some structures from the fortification
system between Belasitsa and Ograzhden Mountain, and the time between the
final accumulation of the rampart and the building of the stone walls was not too
long. In her view, both structures were probably connected with particular stages
of the war for protection of the Bulgarian State in the late 10th - early 11th c.
In the course of work became clear that the stone ring reminding a second
ruined inner wall running parallel to rampart I was in fact an inner facing of the
rampart itself supporting the wooden platform for maneuvers of the defenders.
It seems similar to the wooden structures over the fortress ramparts known from
the Russian Medieval towns from the 10th - 11th c.
Investigating the wall some traces of fire have been registered suggesting
the existence of a wooden palisade.
The ruins of the only one tower have been revealed in the northwestern
sector of the inner rampart. It is tectonically connected with the fortress wall as
the eastern wall of the tower comes to be a sector of the former. Raised in the
highest and the most protected part of the fortification its main functions were to
keep an eye on the entire vicinity rather than to have defense features.
The tower is of a quadrangular plan and its dimensions are 5,55 x 6,35 x
6,30 x 6,42 m. The lower courses of its walls are of crushed stones and boulders
fixed with mud. Its foundations lie upon a layer 0,40 - 0,50 m thick formed of
ash and burnt materials. Above the stone courses it continued in wooden con-
struction of one or more floors probably connected with the wooden structures
over rampart I. The access, likely an open tunnel, was shaped of two parallel walls
(stone with mud) their ends attached to the inner face of the tower eastern wall.
They flanked a passage (3,10 m wide) running across the inner half of rampart I
and at the same time kept the mound accumulated at their sides.
We have not any data available of the height of both the tower and the stone
177
basement. A wooden ladder lead to the floors as a certain sinking down has been
noticed while revealing the walls, and the floor was covered by a layer of ash and
burnt timber 0,30 ֊ 0,40 m thick. The layer contained a great number of iron
nails some of them with large heads coming from the wooden construction and
the gates of the tower, as well as 8 whole and fragmented iron arrowheads.
The nature of the soil the tower was raised upon is the same as the one be-
low rampart I - this comes as a further proof that both the rampart and the stone
wall over it were built at the same time.
There is a deep moat in front of the outer face of the rampart taking advan-
tage of the natural slope of the hill. The section made across the three ramparts
and both moats show that after the fortification was abandoned a layer of stones
fallen from the rampart I face and the fortress wall upon it, as well as burnt tim-
ber from the palisade and probably from the wooden construction of rampart I
accumulated at the bottom of the inner moat (counted from the top down).
According to D. Serafimova the life on the hill was over in the early 11th c.
to recover a bit later. During the excavations some fragments of sgraffito - pot-
tery have been discovered although highly broken and worn out. Three whole
bowls of them have been restored. The presence of this kind of pottery, the small
number of tableware fragments and both coins from the 13th - 14th c. (Latin Con-
stantinople coinage, first ֊ second decades of the 13th c. and a coin of Andron-
ikos II Palaiologos, 1282 - 1328) come as evidence to the life on the hill in the
Second Bulgarian Kingdom as well. Now it is hard to define its nature - a small
village or some single buildings as there are not any remains of constructions
found so far.
The investigations of the early Medieval settlement on Samuels Fortress
Hill in Petrich area expand our knowledge of the early Bulgarian culture from
the 10th c. revealed in the course of archaeological excavations. Along the Stru-
ma River it is known only from the region of Blagoevgrad as a result of the re-
search of the Antique and Medieval Fortress near Dolno Tserovo village. Some
new data has been added concerning the historical development of the region
and to a certain extend - the characteristic features of the material culture in the
southwestern confines of Bulgaria in the 10th - 11th c.
The fortification constructed over the slopes of Samuel’s Fortress Hill is pe-
culiar of the defense structures of the Bulgarians in the First Bulgarian State. The
earthworks and moats as main elements of the Bulgarian military fortified camps
in the Northern and Northeastern Bulgaria found fertile ground here as well.
The archaeological excavations provide the basis to explain the fortifica-
tion in Klyuch Gorge as a fortified camp constructed by Tsar Samuel in the open-
ing years of the 11th c. It remains forever associated with the final battle of the
Tsar Autocrat for the independence of the Bulgarian Kingdom.
178
СЪДЪРЖАНИЕ
В ПАМЕТ НА ДИМКА СТОЯНОВА-СЕРАФИМОВА.7
ЕДИН ПО-РАЗЛИЧЕН ПОГЛЕД ВЪРХУ РАЗКОПКИТЕ
НА САМУИЛОВА КРЕПОСТ.16
ЕПОХАТА НА САМУИЛ
ВЪВ ВИЗАНТИЙСКИТЕ ХРОНИКИ.24
ТЕРЕННИ АРХЕОЛОГИЧЕСКИ ПРОУЧВАНИЯ
НА ХЪЛМА САМУИЛОВА КРЕПОСТ.54
ЗЕМЛЕНОТО УКРЕПЛЕНИЕ НА ХЪЛМА
САМУИЛОВА КРЕПОСТ.71
РАННОСРЕДНОВЕКОВНО СЕЛИЩЕ X ֊ XI В.
НА ХЪЛМА САМУИЛОВА КРЕПОСТ.91
КАТАЛОГ.108
SAMUEL’S FORTRESS IN BELASITSA -
HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY (Summary).169
ИЗПОЛЗВАНА ЛИТЕРАТУРА.180 |
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| author | Komitova, Cvetana ca. 20./21. Jh |
| author_GND | (DE-588)1081313560 |
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| author_role | aut |
| author_sort | Komitova, Cvetana ca. 20./21. Jh |
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| building | Verbundindex |
| bvnumber | BV043207511 |
| ctrlnum | (OCoLC)952089445 (DE-599)BVBBV043207511 |
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| geographic | Belasica (DE-588)7624789-2 gnd |
| geographic_facet | Belasica |
| id | DE-604.BV043207511 |
| illustrated | Illustrated |
| indexdate | 2024-10-03T18:02:32Z |
| institution | BVB |
| isbn | 9789549388671 |
| language | Bulgarian |
| oai_aleph_id | oai:aleph.bib-bvb.de:BVB01-028630695 |
| oclc_num | 952089445 |
| open_access_boolean | |
| owner | DE-12 |
| owner_facet | DE-12 |
| physical | 182 Seiten Illustrationen, Karten |
| publishDate | 2015 |
| publishDateSearch | 2015 |
| publishDateSort | 2015 |
| publisher | Ivraj |
| record_format | marc |
| spelling | Komitova, Cvetana ca. 20./21. Jh. Verfasser (DE-588)1081313560 aut Samuilova krepost pri Belasica - istorija i archeologija = Samuil Fortress near Balasitsa - history and archeology Svetana Komitova Samuil Fortress near Balasitsa - history and archeology Sofija Ivraj 2015 182 Seiten Illustrationen, Karten txt rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier Zusammenfassung in englischer Sprache Text bulgarisch Kyrillische Schrift Samuil Bulgarien, Zar -1014 (DE-588)119238829 gnd rswk-swf Schlacht von Kleidion (DE-588)104551294X gnd rswk-swf Funde (DE-588)4071507-3 gnd rswk-swf Festung (DE-588)4016934-0 gnd rswk-swf Belasica (DE-588)7624789-2 gnd rswk-swf Samuil Bulgarien, Zar -1014 (DE-588)119238829 p Belasica (DE-588)7624789-2 g Festung (DE-588)4016934-0 s Schlacht von Kleidion (DE-588)104551294X s Funde (DE-588)4071507-3 s DE-604 Digitalisierung BSB Muenchen 19 - ADAM Catalogue Enrichment application/pdf http://bvbr.bib-bvb.de:8991/F?func=service&doc_library=BVB01&local_base=BVB01&doc_number=028630695&sequence=000001&line_number=0001&func_code=DB_RECORDS&service_type=MEDIA Abstract Digitalisierung BSB Muenchen 19 - ADAM Catalogue Enrichment application/pdf http://bvbr.bib-bvb.de:8991/F?func=service&doc_library=BVB01&local_base=BVB01&doc_number=028630695&sequence=000002&line_number=0002&func_code=DB_RECORDS&service_type=MEDIA Inhaltsverzeichnis |
| spellingShingle | Komitova, Cvetana ca. 20./21. Jh Samuilova krepost pri Belasica - istorija i archeologija = Samuil Fortress near Balasitsa - history and archeology Samuil Bulgarien, Zar -1014 (DE-588)119238829 gnd Schlacht von Kleidion (DE-588)104551294X gnd Funde (DE-588)4071507-3 gnd Festung (DE-588)4016934-0 gnd |
| subject_GND | (DE-588)119238829 (DE-588)104551294X (DE-588)4071507-3 (DE-588)4016934-0 (DE-588)7624789-2 |
| title | Samuilova krepost pri Belasica - istorija i archeologija = Samuil Fortress near Balasitsa - history and archeology |
| title_alt | Samuil Fortress near Balasitsa - history and archeology |
| title_auth | Samuilova krepost pri Belasica - istorija i archeologija = Samuil Fortress near Balasitsa - history and archeology |
| title_exact_search | Samuilova krepost pri Belasica - istorija i archeologija = Samuil Fortress near Balasitsa - history and archeology |
| title_full | Samuilova krepost pri Belasica - istorija i archeologija = Samuil Fortress near Balasitsa - history and archeology Svetana Komitova |
| title_fullStr | Samuilova krepost pri Belasica - istorija i archeologija = Samuil Fortress near Balasitsa - history and archeology Svetana Komitova |
| title_full_unstemmed | Samuilova krepost pri Belasica - istorija i archeologija = Samuil Fortress near Balasitsa - history and archeology Svetana Komitova |
| title_short | Samuilova krepost pri Belasica - istorija i archeologija |
| title_sort | samuilova krepost pri belasica istorija i archeologija samuil fortress near balasitsa history and archeology |
| title_sub | = Samuil Fortress near Balasitsa - history and archeology |
| topic | Samuil Bulgarien, Zar -1014 (DE-588)119238829 gnd Schlacht von Kleidion (DE-588)104551294X gnd Funde (DE-588)4071507-3 gnd Festung (DE-588)4016934-0 gnd |
| topic_facet | Samuil Bulgarien, Zar -1014 Schlacht von Kleidion Funde Festung Belasica |
| url | http://bvbr.bib-bvb.de:8991/F?func=service&doc_library=BVB01&local_base=BVB01&doc_number=028630695&sequence=000001&line_number=0001&func_code=DB_RECORDS&service_type=MEDIA http://bvbr.bib-bvb.de:8991/F?func=service&doc_library=BVB01&local_base=BVB01&doc_number=028630695&sequence=000002&line_number=0002&func_code=DB_RECORDS&service_type=MEDIA |
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