The ruins of the Late Antiquity fortress Burun Kale are located near the town of Shirokovo, Dve Mogili Municipality, Ruse District, in Northeast Bulgaria. The unexplored fortress is still called by its Turkish name, a leftover from Bulgaria’s period of Ottoman Yoke, meaning “Fortress Cape”, because of its location on a rock between the rivers of Cherni Lom and Banski Lom.
Burun Kale was built in the Late Antiquity. Local legends have it that in the late 14th century AD, in the last years of the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1396 AD), before its conquest by the Ottoman Turks, a huge gold treasure was hidden nearby, in chests loaded on a carriage (henceforth known as the legendary “golden carriage”) to prevent the Turks from taking it.
The Burun Kale Fortress is about 400 meters long, and 150 meters wide. The fortress had three lines of fortress walls on its southern side. Two mounds mark the location of the two fortress tower on the outer wall protecting the main gate. Another fortress tower is known to have existed in the northwest section. The middle wall and the inside wall also had robust fortress towers whose location is marked today by mounds.
The picturesque scenery of the fortress is complemented by rock niches which appear to have been part of a rock monastery in the Middle Ages.
