EXPLORATIONS NEAR BYALA (Valeri Yotov – valeri.yotov@gmail.com, Alexander Minchev) The fortress covered an area of 4 ha and closed the cape. Parts of the fortification wall were explored. It was built of stones bonded with mortar and was 1.80 m wide. Its foundations were up to 1.20 m dug into the ground. There was a ditch in front of the fortification wall. Dolia with lids, dug into the ground along the inner face of the fortification wall, were discovered. Part of a building, 6.30 m wide and over 15 m long, was explored. Probably these were barracks. The roof that collapsed during a fire was documented and two hoards of copper coins of the 6th century AD were found. Buildings burned in the beginning of the 7th century AD were documented inside the fortress. An Early Christian basilica of the 5th century AD was explored. It had three construction periods. Roman sherds and Late Roman coins were found in the leveled embankment situated under the basilica. A house of the 3rd century BC was discovered under the basilica. The basilica was three-nave and single-apse, 22.50 m by 14 m in size. Its walls were constructed of cut stones and the courses were leveled with bricks. There was an entrance in the eastern wall of the northern nave. A three-step synthrone with an Episcopal throne was documented. The foundation of an altar table was discovered in the center of the Bema. Parts of a marble altar table were found close to the outer side of the apse. A partly preserved pavement of bricks was discovered inside the basilica. Marble details of the altar rail and fragments of marble and limestone capitals, columns and bases were found. The basilica had a narthex constructed in opus mixtum with an entrance towards the central nave. There was a chapel, 4.50 m by 3.10 m in size, situated in the northern part of the narthex. During the archaeological excavations, over 50 copper coins of the 5th – beginning of the 7th centuries AD were found, the latest ones minted by Maurice, Phocas and Heraclius until AD 613 – 614/615. The fortress existed during 5th – 6th centuries AD and was destroyed and burned during the invasions of Avars and Slavs in the beginning of the 7th century AD.