Headless Horse Skeleton Found in Likely First Known Cuman Settlement from Second Bulgarian Empire

A well-preserved headless animal skeleton, most likely of a horse, has been discovered by Bulgarian archaeologists excavating a settlement from the High Middle Ages at the foot of the Rahovets Fortress, which might prove to be the very first known site inhabited by the Cumans, a Central Asian nomadic people closely allied with the Tsars of the Second Bulgarian Empire.

The Rahovets Fortress, whose ruins are located on the Arbanasi Plateau near the city of Veliko Tarnovo and the town of Gorna Oryahovitsa in North Bulgaria, was inhabited from at least the 6th century BC until the 15th century AD.

It was used by the Ancient Thracians, the Roman Empire, the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, the Bulgarian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire.

In the High and Late Middle Ages, the Rahovets Fortress was a significant stronghold in close proximity to Tarnovgrad(today’s Veliko Tarnovo), the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire.

The archaeological structures at the site at the foot of the Rahovets Fortress were first stumbled upon by accident in 2021 during construction works for the revamping of a household refuse landfill, The Gorna Oryahovitsa Museum of History has announced in a release.

At the first, the archaeologists thought that they had found only a medieval necropolis but subsequent digs showed there was a full-fledged settlement there.

Its ruins stand at the eastern foot of the Arbanasi plateau harboring the Rahovets Fortress.

The 2024 summer excavations at the settlement have brought the total number of excavated graves there to a total of fifteen.

“Some of the burials in question are showing deviations from the Christian funeral customs,” says the Gorna Oryahovitsa Museum of History.

It points out the newly found burials deviating from the rituals of medieval Christianity, and the fact that the archaeologists have found multiple parts of horse and/or cow skeletons has led to the conclusion that the settlement’s inhabitants were different from the Bulgarian ethnicity of the Second Bulgarian Empire and were likely nomads.

Besides the graves, the archaeologists led by Iliyan Petrakiev from the Veliko Tarnovo Regional Museum of History and Maya Ivanova from the Gorna Oryahovitsa Museum of History have also found medieval homes, hearths, and ritual pits.

A total of 70 archaeological structures of various types have already been exposed.

According to Prof. Hitko Vatchev, who is the consultant of the summer excavations, at the Rahovets Fortress, the newly excavated settlement was most likely inhabited by Cumans.

“We have no way of proving who lived here without the execution of genetic analyses, for which we are now gathering samples,” Petrakiev says.

The archaeologists note that they have established three layers of different structures that were created during a very brief period in the 13th century, the height of the Second Bulgarian Empire.

They say the Rahovets Fortress and its suburbs were very lively up until 1257-1258 AD when the population vanished.

The scholars hypothesize that there was an earthquake that damaged the fortress walls; they also found evidence of a landslide in the eastern suburbs of Rahovets.

“I am bolder in my theories, and I believe that Cumans lived here. The Cumans were allied to all Bulgarian Tsars [of the Second Bulgarian Empire]. Several Cuman princesses even became Bulgarian tsaritsas (i.e. empresses). We have ample historical sources testifying to that,” Vatchev points out.

“However, until now, we didn’t have material traces of where the Cumans lived [in the Second Bulgarian Empire]. And this is the first site in the country [today’s Bulgaria] where there is research of something, which, in my view, is connected precisely with this [Cuman] presence,” explained the expert in medieval archaeology.

As a mentor to the team led by Petrakiev and Ivanov, he praised the 2024 excavations, which were funded by Gorna Oryahovitsa Municipality.

At the conclusion of its digs, the archaeological team put together an impromptu exhibit of the newly discovered artifacts, including ceramic and bone fragments, various household items, such as scissors, a copper woman’s bracelet, a copper baby bracelet, coins, a horseshoe, and a bone knife.

Vatchev informed reporters on the ground that the medieval artifacts from the Rahovets Fortress would be presented at Bulgaria’s National Museum of History in Sofia at the invitation of its director, Assoc. Prof. Boni Petrunova.

Two deputy mayors of Gorna Oryahovitsa, Petya Ivanova and Daniel Bozhankov, told local reporters that the municipality had launched a procedure to obtain the plot of the alleged Cuman settlement at the Rahovets Fortress from the time of the medieval Bulgarian Empire in order to develop it as a historical landmark.

The 2024 archaeological excavations at the Rahovets Fortress included students from the St. Cyril and St. Methodius University in Veliko Tarnovo.

This year’s digs were also visited by historians and archaeologists from Turkey’s capital Ankara and the city of Afyonkarahisar.

The digs were completed with the extraction of the well-preserved headless horse skeleton, which was jokingly nicknamed “Pesho” by the students involved in the research.

The archaeological team notes further that the archaeological research near Bulgaria’s Gorna Oryahovitsa is remarkable for covering three different localities: the Rahovets Fortress itself, the settlement in its eastern suburb, and a suburb to the north where the scholars discovered a medieval church in 2023.

The findings suggest that the area was simultaneously inhabited by people of different cultures.

The 2024 excavations at the Rahovets Fortress are set to continue around the church found at the northern foot of the Arbanasi Plateau.

***

Did you know that there is now an entire ancient nation made up of archaeologists?

It exists against all odds in “The Mudbrick Swamp,” a fantasy book by Ivan Dikov!

BUY ‘THE MUDBRICK SWAMP,’ Book 1, Volume 1, of the RODINIYA’S REASON fantasy series HERE!

Background Infonotes:

The ancient and medieval settlement and fortress of Rahovets is located near the town of Gorna Oryahovitsa and the city of Veliko Tarnovo, in Veliko Tarnovo District, Northern Bulgaria. It existed as a settlement and later as a fortress from the 6th century BC until the 15th century AD, and was used consecutively by the Ancient Thracians, the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Bulgarian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire.

The Rahovets Fortress is located at a curve of the Yantra River, on a hill towering about 100 meters over the surrounding area – the northern slopes of the Arbanasi Plateau.

The site of the Rahovets Fortress was inhabited by the Ancient Thracians, during the Iron Age, as early as the 6th century BC. Some Bulgarian scholars have hypothesized that the settlement that later became known as the Rahovets Fortress was part of a huge regional fortification system in Thracian times, and/or that Rahovets was in fact the ancient city Beripara, the alleged capital of the Thracian tribe Krobyzoi (which might have belonged to the Thracian tribes of the Gets (Getae) or the Dacians), or that it was the legendary Thracian fortress Zekideva.

However, these hypotheses have not been proven. The Roman Fortress of Rahova, later called Rahovets, was built in the 3rd-4th century AD as part of the fortification system guarding the roads in the Roman province of Moesia Inferior (later divided into Moesia Secunda and Scythia Minor).

Rahovets remained an important fortress during the period of the Early Byzantine Empire (Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages), during the First Bulgarian Empire (632/680-1018 AD), then again during the period of Byzantine domination over Bulgaria (1018-1185 AD). It became especially important during the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1396), which was created after the Uprising of Asen and Petar (later Tsar Asen I and Tsar Petar IV) against the Byzantine Empire in 1185-1186 AD when Tarnovgrad (today’s Veliko Tarnovo) was declared capital of Bulgaria.

It became part of a set of fortifications which protected Tarnovgrad from the north. There are hypotheses that Rahovets used to be the locations of the coin mint of the Tsars from the Second Bulgarian Empire, and while these hypotheses have not been confirmed, Bulgarian archaeologists have indeed discovered there evidence of metal smelting during the Middle Ages.

They have also found a residential area outside of the fortress, between the fortress wall and the Yantra River, known as the Dark City, meaning that it might have been the site of a large medieval city, where the Rahovets Fortress had the role of a citadel.

After the invading Ottoman Turks conquered the Second Bulgarian Empire at the end of the 14th century, they continued to use the Rahovets Fortress. The fortress was destroyed only in 1444 AD by the forces of Polish King Vladislav (Wladyslaw) III ((r. 1424-1444 AD) who launched two unsuccessful Crusades against the Ottoman Empire in 1443 AD and 1444 AD (he is also known as Vladislav Varnenchik (Vladislav of Varna) because he was killed in the Battle of Varna in 1444 AD).

After that, the Turks abandoned the Rahovets Fortress completely. While much of the archaeological structures at the Rahovets Fortress had survived until the beginning of the 20th century (including fortress walls, towers, and gates described by Czech-Bulgarian archaeologist Karel Skorpil), those were destroyed in 1913 by a strong earthquake with an epicenter in the nearby town of Gorna Oryahovitsa.

The Rahovets Fortress was first mentioned in historical sources by Byzantine chronicler George Pachymeres (1242-1310) in 1304 AD, and again in 1460 AD by German wandering singer Michael Beheim (1416-ca. 1472) in a poem based on the story of a crusader knight from the second Crusade of Polish King Vladislav (Wladyslaw) III against the Ottoman Empire aiming the liberation of Bulgaria and the other Balkan Christian nations in 1444 AD.

In the early 20th century, Czech-Bulgarian archaeologist Karel Skorpil drafted a blueprint of the preserved ruins of the Rahovets Fortress, which, however, were destroyed further by an earthquake in 1913.

The Rahovets Fortress was excavated only between 1985 and 1991 by Veliko Tarnovo archaeologists Yordan Aleksiev, Ivan Bachvarov, and Hitko Vatchev. They excavated partly the western, northern, and eastern fortress wall, which were about 3 meters thick.

The archaeological digs at the fortress confirmed not only its significance during the Second Bulgarian Empire but also the fact that as a settlement it is really ancient: the Bulgarian archaeologists found a large amount of Ancient Thracian ceramics, and amphora seals testifying about the connections with the Hellenic world. They also discovered the nearby remains of a rural Ancient Roman villa (known as villa rustica) from the 3rd-4th century AD, ancient coins, decorations, and tools as well as artifacts and arms from the Second Bulgarian Empire.

****************************************************************************

Support ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com on Patreon

with $1 per Month!

Become a Patron Now!

or

Make One-time Donation via Paypal!

Your contribution for free journalism is appreciated!

****************************************************************************

Download the ArchaeologyinBulgaria App for iPhone & iPad!

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest!