Excavation Continues in Bulgaria’s Trapesitsa Fortress

VELIKO TARNOVOA, BULGARIA—Archaeology in Bulgaria reports that the remains of a baby or very young child have been found in a clay pot among 50 other burials under the floor of a large fourteenth-century church in north-central Bulgaria’s Trapesitsa Fortress. The church is one of many in the medieval fortress, which protected the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire. Deyan Rabovyanov of Bulgaria’s National Institute and Museum of Archaeology said the church was probably built in the 1330s, during the reign of Tsar Ivan Alexander. It was then heavily damaged, and restored in the 1370s. Older artifacts found in the building, including an enameled bronze reliquary casket made in Western Europe, are thought to have been placed in the church when it was consecrated. “The number and type [of the religious artifacts] speaks of the important role this parish church played in the life of the residents of the southern quarters of Trapesitsa,” Rabovyanov said. To read about another discovery in Bulgaria, go to “Thracian Treasure Chest.”