THE CEMETERY IN THE NORTHERN PRECINCTS OF ST. FORTY MARTYRS CHURCH (Konstantin Totev – konstantin_totev@abv.bg, Evgeni Dermendzhiev, Plamen Karailiev) Twenty graves from the Muslim cemetery of the 18th – 19th centuries were explored. Two midden pits of the 17th – 18th centuries, containing coins, nails, pottery and animal bones, were excavated. A yard pavement of rubble and mortar, dated to the second half of the 14th century, was discovered. Twenty graves of the mediaeval cemetery, dated from the second half of the 13th to mid 14th centuries, were explored. Bronze buttons, small ceramic vessels, and fragmentary bricks with incised crosses and graffiti IС ХС NHKA were found in the graves. Two midden pits, containing kitchen pottery, sgraffito pottery and animal bones, were excavated. One of the pits contained fragments of the first wall-paintings of the church dated to 1230. The fragments are painted in red, green, blue, gray and black color, and some of them show nimbi, vegetable and geometric decoration. A lime-pit dug into the mediaeval stratum was discovered. A sunken-floored dwelling, dated to the end of the 12th – beginning of the 13th century, was excavated. Part of the Early Byzantine supporting wall was explored. The finds from the excavations include sherds with graffiti, fragmentary sgraffito pottery showing eagles, a silver plate with an Arab inscription, terracotta tobacco-pipes, copper and silver coins, a bronze finger-ring, fragmentary glass bracelets, bronze buttons, an iron arrowhead, terracotta spindle whirls, a bronze snap, etc. The chronology of the site is the following: two sunken-floored dwellings, a kiln and a midden pit, related to the metallurgical workshops, date to the end of the 12th – beginning of the 13th centuries; the cemetery around the church dates from the second half of the 13th to mid 14th centuries; the monastery dates to the second half of the 14th century.