Drastar () and the residence of the Bulgarian khans during the first half of the 9th c. (Abstract) Gеorgi Atanasov

Durostorum is the only major Roman some Byzantine strategoi were involved in city in the borders of pagan , the Bulgarian army. They were removed whose fortifications were rebuilt and used from the army in the time of Khan throughout the Middle Ages. The , around 816. In my opinion, one possibility that the fortress was restored as of them was active in Drastar between 809 early as the late 7th c. during the reign of and 816. Considering the lack of evidence Khan Asparuch (665-700/701), as stated in for inhabitation of the fortress from the late the Anonymous Bulgarian Chronicle and 7th to the late 8th c., it is possible that he accepted by many scholars, should be was engaged with the reconstruction of the rejected. It is specified that the text of the early Byzantine structures of Durostorum Chronicle is not from the 11th c., but it is and its transformation into a major military rather a 13th c. compilation. Archaeological and administrative centre of early medieval investigations in Silistra have not brought Bulgaria. Special attention is paid to the to light 8th c. finds. Actually, around the early Byzantium fortifications of the city, southern gate and at sites near the Danube, reconstructed after the beginning of the 9th small amount of Slavonic pottery and c., which have no analog in the Bulgarian Penkovka type of pottery are found, but lands. The fortress was built in the time of they date from the last decades of the 6th emperor Justinian I (527-565). It has a and the 7th c. (Fig. 2). They should be polygonal shape, or rather a trapezoidal related to the end of the life in Roman and one, according to the latest research (Fig. Byzantium Durostorum – Dorostol in the 1). It covers an area of 5 ha. From the second half of the 7th c. The earliest northwestern corner on the Danube, a authentic artifacts, attesting the presence of system begins that has no analog in the the in Drastar, date from the Late Antique and medieval fortifications. It end of the 8th – the beginning of the 9th c. consists of large pentagonal towers and First of all, pottery fragments are found small triangular bastions, alternating at under the foundations of the cathedral intervals of 12 m in a configuration that is basilica on the banks of the Danube and to reminiscent of the system W-M (Figs. 1, the west of it (Fig. 3). These fragments 6). The vertical stratigraphy in front of the belong to low spheroidal jars made of well southern fortress wall and the characters purified clay of black and gray colour, with incised into it, including the combination traces of burnishing on the surface (Figs. IYI (Figs. 9, 10), suggests that the fortress 3-3), and high jars made of clay with was used without any drastic changes brown admixtures, with surface that is during the Middle Ages. Very significant densely covered with incised parallel and repairs are detected in the eastern fortress wavy lines. Much more secure evidence wall, where the early Byzantine gate was for life in Drastar in early 9th c. is offered destroyed. In the beginning of 9th c., a new by several inscriptions, related to the reign gate was constructed to east of the earlier of Khan Omurtag (814-831), and one (Figs. 1 1, 7, 8). Its closest analogs are especially a column with inscription the gates of before their КANACYBIГІ ОМОРТАГ (KHAN reconstruction, i.e. from the beginning of SUVIGI OMURTAG) on the first row and the 9th c., when the additional outer СГРАТІГОС (THE STRATEGUS) on the (second) double door was still not used. second (Figs. 4, 5). It is known that in 809, The article discusses new evidence during the reign of Khan Krum (803-814), that the reconstructed fortress of Drastar was the Danube residence of the Bulgarian to the Danube, where a cathedral church rulers in 9-10th c. (the so-called “Preslaven was built after the middle of the 9th c. (Fig. dom” in the Omurtag’s inscription from 10). On the grounds of earlier excavations, Tarnovo). Four other inscriptions from the my conclusion is that in the first half of the time of Khan Omurtag, found in Silistra, 9th c. only three monumental buildings are adduced as additional arguments. It is were constructed in the citadel of Drastar: suggested that the palace of Omurtag in the Danube palace of the Bulgarian rulers, Drastar was a massive tripartite building the ruler’s bathhouse and the pagan temple situated near the northern fortress wall (Fig. 1). Perhaps there were other (Fig. 1 4, 13,14). The unearthed tripartite secondary buildings, such as barracks for a bath (Fig. 1 5, 15, 16) in the same area of small garrison and storehouses, but that the fortress was probably connected with does not change the general picture. the palace. It has 9th c. parallels from Obviously Drastar was a “closed city” with Pliska, Preslav and the Aul of Khan exclusive access, designed for the ruler and Omurtag at the village of Khan Krum near his entourage and used as refuge during . The unearthed pagan temple enemy attacks, providing shelter to the (kapishte) at the centre of the fortress, neighbouring population and military which was destroyed after the middle of contingents. Attention is paid to the small the 9th c., is among the indisputable pagan amount of archaeological materials from monuments in Drastar (Fig. 1 8, 17, 18, the 9th c. in Silistra. That is explained with 19). Unlike the temples in Pliska and the leveling of the terrain in late 9th – early Preslav, the kapishte in Drastar was not 10th c., when the patriarchal cathedral and transformed into church, because there was the patriarchal residence were built. already a sanctified place on the bank of Archaeological arguments are adduced to the Danube, where in 362 St. Emilian from reject the localizations of the so-called Durostorum was burnt. For that reason, the “Preslaven dom na Dunav” in Pacuiul lui stone blocks from the kapishte in the centre Soare and near the village of Malak of Drastar were dismantled and transported Preslavec, Silistra District.