The Late Antiquity Roman and Early Byzantine fortress, which is part of the archaeological complex near Shkorpilovtsi, is located 1.4 km southeast of the town, and has the shape of a rectangle with sides 100 m (north-south) x 70 m (east-west). The small but robust fortress was built in the second half of the 4th century AD; it had strong round fortress towers. A large Early Christian basilica was built in its easten section. The excavated elements of the fortification, buildings, and facilities attest to a very important archaeological monument of culture of Early Christian art and architecture, and define its high scientific, cultural, and historic value. The region of today’s town of Shkorpilovtsi was of great importance for the Roman Empire in the 1st-4th century AD, and later for the Eastern Roman Empire, Byzantium, because it was part of the route of a strategic road going from Constantinople to the mouth of the Danube River along the Black Sea coast. The fortress was destroyed at the end of the 6th century AD by a barbarian invasion.
The archaeological complex near the town of Shkorpilovtsi, Dolni Chiflik Municipality, Varna District, on Bulgaria’s Northern Black Sea coast consists of a Late Antiquity Early Byzantine fortress (Quadriburg), an Early Christian basilica, an Early Christian tomb, and part of an Ancient Bulgar wall (rampart). The town is named after Czech-Bulgarian brothers Karel and Hermann Skorpil who founded modern-day Bulgarian archaeology at the end of the 19th century, and who discovered and were the first to excavated the archaeological complex near it. The archaeological sites near Shkorpilovtsi were last excavated in the 1970s, and have been largely abandoned ever since. In the spring of 2015, a commission from Bulgaria’s Ministry of Culture decided to propose granting a “monument of culture” status to the archaeological complex.
