ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS NEAR TVARDITSA (Krasimir Velkov – dakras@abv.bg) The fortress covered an area of 2.4 ha. The outer fortification wall was 3 m wide, built of roughly-cut stones bonded with mortar in opus incertum. A building was discovered close to the outer fortification wall. Its walls were 1.20 m wide, built of roughly-cut stones bonded with mortar. The inner fortification wall was preserved up to 2 m in height and it surrounded the citadel located on the top of the fortress. A burned building occupied during the 13th – 14th centuries was documented. The collapsed walls of the building covered its floor and fragmentary pots, jugs and sgraffito bowls were discovered on it. The other finds comprised iron nails from the collapsed roof, an iron ring from a door, horseshoes, an iron belt buckle, an iron spur, iron arrowheads, two silver earrings, a small iron cross, an iron plate from a lock, three coins: two Bulgarian imitative coins of the Type C minted in 1207 – 1218 and a coin of the Bulgarian King Ivan Shishman minted after 1380. The finds from the excavations included a coin of Arcadius, a Latin imitative coin minted during the 1260s, a coin of the Bulgarian King Konstantin Asen minted in 1264/1265 and a coin of the Bulgarian King Ivan Alexander with Mihail Asen minted in the town of Cherven. According to the osteological analysis, there were animal bones from boars, red deer, fallow deer, deer, rabbits, pigs, ox, sheep, goats, horses, dogs, and fish bones from carps, catfishes, zanders, tenches and common breams. The paleobotanical analysis showed that oak timber was used.