Christian Reliquary Cross Found in 11th Century Byzantine Fortress in Southeast Bulgaria Destroyed by Crusaders in Third Crusade

A bronze reliquary cross from the High Middle Ages of the engolpion type – i.e. a hollow cross used for keeping holy Christian relics – has been discovered by Bulgarian archaeologists during the excavations of the “Small Kale,” a fortress near Voden in South Bulgaria, which was used by the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire but was likely destroyed by the Western European Crusaders in the Third Crusade.

The bronze reliquary cross from the small fortress near Voden, Bolyarovo Municipality, Yambol District, has been found by archaeologists from the Yambol Regional Museum of History during the first stage of the 2024 digs at the Eastern Roman Empire site.

The small Voden fortress – not to be confused with the Upper Voden fortress near Bulgaria’s Asenovgrad – was in use in the 11th-12th century – precisely the period during which the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as Byzantium, had conquered the First Bulgarian Empire (1018-1185 AD).

The 2024 archaeological excavations at the medieval Byzantine site near Bulgaria’s Voden were led by Assist. Prof. Stefan Bakardzhiev and Yavor Rusev from the Yambol Museum of History, with the participation of students from the University of Library and IT Studies in Sofia, led by Assoc. Prof. Diana Stoyanova.

The work of the archaeologists was interrupted by a devastating wildfire that occurred in Southeast Bulgaria in July 2024, and raged on the site of the Eastern Roman fortress, the Yambol Regional Museum of History announced in a release.

The museum says the archaeologists’ goal was to complete the research of a room located to the south of the main entrance of the Small Kale fortress near Voden.

It was in that room that in 2023 the archaeologists discovered and researched a part of a mural in situ on the inner side of the eastern fortress wall.

“The character of the exposed mural part and the fragments found over the past three archaeological seasons had led to the supposition that the researched room had the functions of a chapel in the medieval fortress,” the Yambol museum explains.

It adds further that the 2024 excavations have inspired the conclusion that room in question was adjacent to the inner side of the fortress wall. It had the shape of a square. It’s north-south walls were 4.5 meters long, and its east-west walls were 4.6 meters long.

The medieval Christian chapel had a 2.6-meter-wide entrance from the west, that is, from the inner yard of the fortress.

The chapel was divided in two, by two large buttresses; its western part was thus 1.2 meters wide and 4.5 meters long, and its eastern part was 2.2 meters and 4.5 meters long.

Inside the easter part, the archaeologists researched a cross-shaped structure that was 1.5 x 1.5 meters. It was made of crushed stones and bricks and partly covered with murals on its northern side.

“This structure probably functioned as an altar table,” the Yambol Museum of History says.

In the southeastern corner of the eastern section of the medieval Eastern Roman (Byzantine) chapel, the archaeologists found a single burial chamber, which was dug in at a depth of 0.4 meters beneath the room’s floor and rose at 0.4 meters above the floor.

The medieval Christian burial chamber in question was made of medium-sized or small crushed stones plastered with white mortar. On the outside, it was covered with murals.

In the eastern end of the burial chamber, the archaeologists stumbled upon a square niche going inside the eastern fortress wall.

“During our research, we established that the northwestern section of the burial chamber was destroyed and the tomb was invaded already in the Middle Ages, probably during the conquest of the fortress [by the Crusaders] at the end of the 12th century,” explains the Yambol Museum of History.

“Subsequently, it was partly filled up with rubble,” it added.

The museum reveals further that, despite the fact that the Christian tomb in the Voden fortress’s chapel had been burglarized in the Middle Ages, the archaeologists discovered human bones “in their anatomical order, including the buried person’s skull.”

The person in question was buried in the east-west direction, with their head pointing to the west.

“Around the bones, [we] found a large number of iron nails and brackets, showing that the deceased was buried in a coffin,” the museum explains.

It was around the buried person’s skull that the researchers discovered burial gifts – including the well-preserved half of the reliquary “engolpion” cross.

Engolpions (or encolpions) are religious artifacts, usually in Eastern Orthodox Christianity, worn upon the chest with inside containers for keeping holy relics.

The Yambol museum notes that the owner of the cross had most likely particles of the Holy Cross on which Jesus Christ was crucified or bone particles from a saint’s relics inside the engolpion.

Besides the cross, the archaeologists excavating the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) fortress near Voden in Southeast Bulgaria found a billon (alloy) coin of Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Emperor Manuel I Comnenus (r. 1143-1180), and a stone spindle whorl.

“The discovery of the whorl leads to the presumption that that the person buried in the chamber was a woman but the conclusive answer to this question will be given after the additional anthropological analysis of the bones,” the Yambol Museum of History says.

The museum further lays out its conclusion based on the 2024 archaeological excavations of the Voden fortress from the High Middle Ages in Southeast Bulgaria.

“The results from the [2024 archaeological] season have shown that the room was probably a chapel crypt, whose underground floor contained one or more burial chambers of people who were of extremely high social status,” the researchers conclude.

Other artifacts discovered during the 2024 excavations of the medieval Christian chapel room include an iron sword cross guard, part of a spear tip, and a large amount of fragmented luxury and regular pottery.

“The latest excavations have confirmed the already existing hypothesis that the Small Kale fortress near Voden functioned as the residence of a high Byzantine [Eastern Roman] aristocrat from the middle of the 11thcentury until the end of the 12th century, when it was destroyed, most likely during the Third Crusade (1189-1190 AD),” concludes the Yambol Museum of History.

The museum also says that the conservation of the newly exposed archaeological structures will be completed at a later date.

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Also check out this article about the Voden fortress:

Crusaders from Third Crusade Destroyed 11th-Century Byzantine Empire’s Fortress in Southeast Bulgaria, Archaeologists Find

Also check out these other engolpion (reliquary) cross finds:

Unknown 14th Century Church Containing Hoard of Bronze Engolpion Crosses Discovered in Trapesitsa Fortress in Bulgaria’s Veliko Tarnovo

World’s First Medieval Gold Cross Reliquary with Holy Cross Particle Discovered in Trapesitsa Fortress in Bulgaria’s Veliko Tarnovo

Early Christian Bishop’s Residence, Reliquary Cross with Crucified Jesus Christ Found in Bulgaria’s Rock City Perperikon