Bizarre 9th Century Seal with ‘Adult’ Baby Jesus, Virgin Mary Discovered in Capital of First Bulgarian Empire Pliska
The 9th century seal found in Bulgaria’s early medieval capital Pliska features the Virgin Mary with a “grown-up” Baby Jesus on one side, and the Calvary Hill with the cross on the other. Photo: TV grab from BNT
A 9th century lead seal with a weird depiction of Jesus Christ alongside Virgin Mary has been discovered by archaeologists excavating an aristocrat’s mansion from the Early Middle Ages in Pliska, the capital of the First Bulgarian Empire at the time when it converted from paganism to Christianity.
Pliska was the capital of the First Bulgarian Empire in 680-893 AD. It became the first capital of the Ancient Bulgars south of the Danube River.
The First Bulgarian Empire (632/680-1018) officially converted to Christianity in 864-865 AD, and began adopting the Bulgaric alphabet, also known as the Cyrillic, after 886 AD.
The newly discovered nobleman’s lead seal in Pliska is particularly striking in that it is supposed to be showing the Virgin Mary together with Baby Jesus; however, instead of a baby, Jesus Christ is depicted as a grown man.
The lead seal is dated to the second half of the 9th century, and the images it features are also of a different size which is not typical for seal minting in the Middle Ages, according to a report by the Bulgarian National Television.
The unusual artifact from the Ancient Bulgar capital Pliska has been discovered by a team lead by archaeologists Ivaylo Kanev from the National Museum of History in Sofia and Assoc. Prof. Konstantin Konstantinov from Shumen University “Konstantin Preslavski.”
The researchers do note the possibility that both the excavated early medieval mansion and the newly found lead seal could have belonged to Knyaz (“King”) Boris I Mihail (r. 852-889; 893), the ruler who led the Bulgarian Empire to adopt Christianity.
The 9th century lead seal with the bizarre depiction of the grown-up Baby Jesus alongside the Virgin Mary has been unearthed in the mansion, which had a territory of 12 decares (app. 3 acres), and belonged to a senior dignitary of the Bulgarian Empire’s ruling elite in Pliska.
The 9th century seal found in Bulgaria’s early medieval capital Pliska features the Virgin Mary with a “grown-up” Baby Jesus on one side, and the Calvary Hill with the cross on the other. Photo: TV grab from BNT
The 9th century seal found in Bulgaria’s early medieval capital Pliska features the Virgin Mary with a “grown-up” Baby Jesus on one side, and the Calvary Hill with the cross on the other. Photo: TV grab from BNT
The 9th century seal found in Bulgaria’s early medieval capital Pliska features the Virgin Mary with a “grown-up” Baby Jesus on one side, and the Calvary Hill with the cross on the other. Photo: TV grab from BNT
The 9th century seal found in Bulgaria’s early medieval capital Pliska features the Virgin Mary with a “grown-up” Baby Jesus on one side, and the Calvary Hill with the cross on the other. Photo: TV grab from BNT
The 9th century seal found in Bulgaria’s early medieval capital Pliska features the Virgin Mary with a “grown-up” Baby Jesus on one side, and the Calvary Hill with the cross on the other. Photo: TV grab from BNT
The seal has an inscription on both sides, which is circular, rather than consisting of four lines, which was the typical rule at the time, the researchers note.
The seal inscription is in Ancient Greek, likely indicating that it was created before the adoption of the Bulgaric (i.e., Slavic or Cyrillic script) by the First Bulgarian Empire in 886 AD.
“On one side [of the seal] we can see the Golgotha (Calvary) Hill, which is presented as a staircase, and the cross [on which Jesus Christ was crucified], and this cross actually [represents] Christs,” explains lead archaeologist Ivaylo Kanev.
“On the other side [of the seal], we can see the Mother of God (Virgin Mary) with Christ, the Christ Child (Baby Jesus). And this is where the interesting things begin, which don’t exist in other seals. First of all, Christ is much smaller [that usual]. Second, we are kidding here that he is not [shown as] the Christ Child but as the Christ Oldman. You can see Christ presented as a child but at the same time he has a beard and moustache,” Kanev elaborated.
“We are still searching for analogies but we don’t know of any [medieval] lead seal with such a depiction of Christ as an older [person],” lead archaeologist Konstantin Konstantinov chimes in.
“It is also possible that this [depiction] was [Knyaz] Boris [I] himself… The seal is most certainly Bulgarian, and we know that it dates back to the end of 9th – beginning of the 10th century,” Konstantinov adds.
The aristocrat’s mansion in Pliska where the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ seal was discovered dates back to the 9th century AD. Photo: TV grab from BNT
The aristocrat’s mansion in Pliska where the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ seal was discovered dates back to the 9th century AD. Photo: TV grab from BNT
The aristocrat’s mansion in Pliska where the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ seal was discovered dates back to the 9th century AD. Photo: TV grab from BNT
The aristocrat’s mansion in Pliska where the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ seal was discovered dates back to the 9th century AD. Photo: TV grab from BNT
The aristocrat’s mansion in Pliska where the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ seal was discovered dates back to the 9th century AD. Photo: TV grab from BNT
His colleague Kanev dwells on the significance of the find.
“I think that this year we’ve made the most serious discover in Bulgarian archaeology. Yes, there is no gold, no gloss, no bracelets… However, this is something ours and it is connected with us… with the most difficult time in Bulgarian history, connected with the transition from paganism to Christianity,” the archaeologist states.
The 9th century lead seal from the time of the First Bulgarian Empire also features a preserved slit for the cord use for sealing documents.
The report concludes by noting it is not impossible that the seal could have belonged to Knyaz Boris I Mihail, also canonized by the Bulgarian Orthodox Church as Saint Boris I Mihail the Baptizer, and that the mansion near Pliska could have been his summer residence.
It is also noted that the medieval Bulgarian aristocratic mansion in question was first discovered by archaeologists 40 years ago, and has been researched on and off ever since.
***
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 – Volume 1 of the “Rodiniya’s Reason” fantasy series!
BUY ‘THE MUDBRICK SWAMP,’ Book 1, Volume 1, of the RODINIYA’S REASON fantasy series HERE! ONLY $6.99 FOR KINDLE!
***
The city of Pliska was the first early medieval capital of the Ancient Bulgars south of the Danube River, and the first capital of the First Bulgarian Empire (632/680 – 1018 AD) south of the Danube.
Today the ruins of Pliska near the modern-day towns of Pliska and Kaspichan are located in the District of Shumen in Northeast Bulgaria.
Pliska was the capital of the First Bulgarian Empire for more than 200 years, more specifically, between 680 and 893 AD.
In 893 AD, the capital of the First Bulgarian Empire was moved to the nearby city of Veliki (“Great”) Preslav in the wake of the official adoption of Christianity in 864, and the subsequent development of the Old Bulgarian literary language based on the Glagolithic alphabet and Bulgaric (Cyrillic) alphabet.
Pliska is believed to have been the largest city in medieval Europe by total area (albeit not by population), with a total territory of 23 square kilometers enclosed inside its outer fortifications.
Thus, Pliska’s fortified territory was much larger than that of Constantinople (capital of the Roman Empire in the 4th century, and of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire in the 5th – 15th century) whose territory enclosed inside the Constantinian Walls was 6.2 square kilometers, and inside the outer Theodosian Walls was 14 square kilometers.
In terms of territory, Pliska was also substantially larger than Aachen, capital of the Carolingian Empire of Charlemagne at the time, which had a territory of about 2 square kilometers.
Recent archaeological discoveries reveal that a settlement existed in Pliska’s location already in the Bronze Age.
The city, however, emerged after ca. 680 Khan Asparuh (r. 680 – ca. 700 AD), the leader of part of the Ancient Bulgars, transferred the center of the First Bulgarian Empire from the plains of today’s Ukraine and Southwest Russia to today’s Northeast Bulgaria south of the Danube River.
The ruins of Pliska were first excavated in 1897-1898 by Czech-Bulgarian archaeologist Karel Skorpil although the city was not identified as Pliska until 1905.
Pliska occupied the site of a hilly plain with several small rivers. It had three concentric defensive zones.
The first was the outer city, which was protected by a moat, a berm, and an embankment with a palisade (wall). The second one, the inner city, had a massive stone fortress wall, and the third one was a brick fortification, a citadel defending the complex of the imperial palace inside it.
The outer city, and respectively the outermost fortification, was a rectangle, which was 6.5 kilometers long and between 3.9 and 2.7 kilometers wider.
Its defensive line, or fortification, was 36 meters thick, and consisted of a moat, a berm, and wall (embankment with a palisade).
The moat was 16 meters wide, and 4 – 4.5 meters deep. The berm (or pathway between the moat and the embankment) was 8.5 meters wide. The wall, or embankment itself was 12 meters wide, and 3 meters tall. It was formed by using the soil dug up from the moat.
The outer city appears to have been inhabited by craftsman and peasants. It was not densely populated but, rather, its population lived in separate clusters or boroughs.
Some of the buildings and dwellings which existed in Pliska’s outer city included craftsmen’s workshops, wooden houses, and dugouts. Small stone churches were built scattered throughout the outer city of the first capital south of the Danube of the First Bulgarian Empire after its official adoption of Christianity in 864 AD.
One especially well preserved structure is a pottery factory consisting of kilns and furnaces, workshops, storage space, and dwellings, which was a rectangle that was 100 meters long and 35 meters wide.
The inner city of the Ancient Bulgar capital Pliska was a fortress whose fortress walls were built of large limestone blocks. It was located almost in the center of the outer city. Its fortress walls were 2.6 meters thick, and are estimated to have been 10-12 meters tall. It, too, was shaped as a trapezoid. Its southern and northern sides were 740 meters long, its eastern side was 612 meters long, and its western side was 788 meters long.
There was a fortress gate in the middle of each side, with the eastern and western gates being larger than the southern and northern ones. Three out of the four gates have been discovered and explored. Each one had two 15-meter-tall fortress towers. Each gate consisted of three doors: two wooden outer doors and a descending metal lattice.
The four corners of Pliska’s inner city had round fortress towers. Between the respective gate and corner round towers, each wall had a pentagonal fortress tower (a total of 8 of those for the entire outer city), for a total of 20 fortress towers altogether.
The inner city had an underground plumbing system beneath its stone pavement, which was made up of clay pipes and mortar.
The innermost citadel, or the palace complex, had the shape of a rectangle in the middle of the inner city. It was walled off with a brick wall. It contained buildings known today as the Small Palace, the Large Palace, the Khan’s Palace, and a heathen shrine.
The first buildings in it were wooden structures which were then replaced with stone buildings.
The Large Palace is also known as Krum’s Palace, after Khan Krum (r. 803 – 814 AD). The ruins of its foundations show that it was 74 meters long, 60 meters wide, and its walls were 2 meters thick. The four corners of the building are believed to have had towers. The palace is hypothesized to have had two floors and an inner yard.
Krum’s Palace had an underground passage paved with bricks which linked it to the Small Palace; the passage was 1.9 meters tall, and 1 meter wide.
Krum’s Palace was destroyed in 811 AD when Pliska was captured briefly by the Byzantine Empire, and was never rebuilt.
Krum’s son and successor, Khan Omurtag (r. 814 – 830 AD) built a throne hall upon part of the foundations of Krum’s Palace. The hall was a rectangle which was 52 meters long and 26.5 meters wide. Its walls were 2.5 meters thick. They were made of limestone blocks, and are preserved up to a height of 3 meters. The building had two floors, with the throne room believed to have been on the second floor. It is believed to have been in use up until the reign of Knyaz Boris I Mihail (r. 853-889) who formally converted the First Bulgarian Empire to Christianity.
One of the most impressive buildings in Pliska is its so called Great Basilica, which is said to have been the largest church in Europe before the construction of the St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome in the 17th century. In addition to the actual temple which was 100 meters long and 30 meters wide, with a total area of some 3,000 square meters, it was part of a large monastery complex.
