ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS IN PLISKA (Pavel Georgiev – pavel_g@gbg.bg, Gergana Ilieva) The area to the west of the entrance of the Great Basilica was explored. A pavement of stone slabs was discovered. It covered a square situated in front of the basilica. Several places for mortar stirring were documented. The area was a construction site before the pavement was placed. A drain, which collected the water from the roofing of the atrium, was discovered. The drain was without bottom (absorbing), while its sides were constructed of stone slabs and it was covered with slabs. Three parallel stripes of mortar fragments were discovered. The stripes are 80 cm wide, up to 6.70 m long and 55 – 70 cm thick. Most probably these are the beds of foundations, which were filled with mortar fragments. A pit, 2.20 m deep, was discovered in the central apse, behind the preserved part of the synthrone. The pit contained fragmentary bricks and mortar, charcoal and iron slag. Evidently, it was dug before the construction of the basilica.
PLISKA (Pavel Georgiev – pavel_g@gbg.bg, Tihomir Tihov, Gergana Ilieva) The Great Basilica had been discovered in 1899–1900 and excavated throughout the 20th century. It is the biggest church in Mediaeval Bulgaria, built by Prince Boris I in c. AD 875, shortly after the Christianization of the Bulgars in AD 864 – 865, and existed until the middle of the 11th century. The basilica was constructed over the foundations of a cross-like pagan proto-Bulgarian temple. It was a three-nave basilica, initially with a single apse and later with three apses, with a narthex and an atrium. The basilica was 99 m long and 29.50 m wide. There was a baptistery with a cross-like piscina adjoining the southern wall of the basilica. In 2015, the explorations of the well beneath the southern aisle discovered in 1899 were resumed. It was constructed inside a pit, 3.90 m in diameter in its upper part and 2.80 m in diameter in its lower part, 8.20 m deep. The well has a square layout, built of stones bonded with clay. It was covered with a hemispherical dome constructed of bricks bonded with mortar, which stood over an octagonal structure built of vertical stone slabs and walls of bricks. The dome was situated beneath the floor of the basilica. The well was synchronous to the cross-like pagan proto-Bulgarian temple explored under the altar of the basilica. After the proto-Bulgarian temple was destroyed, the well continued to function as a holy spring, being accessible via a stone staircase, and a cenotaph was built close to it. There were incised crosses and a Christ Monogram. Fragmentary ceramic vessels of the second half of the 9th – 10th centuries were found in the well. The proto-Bulgarian monogram |Y| was incised on a jug and there is a Greek graffito with the name Phevronia on another one. The finds from the well also included over 40 weights for buckets, marble veneer, tiles and frames, fragments from columns, two smalt tesserae, a fragment from a marble mortarium with incised cross, a copper pendant-encolpion, eight stone spindle whorls. In addition, the finds from the basilica included lead seals of Georgios, Archbishop of Bulgaria, and Gregorios, koumerkiarios of Deultum, and two folleis of Leo VI the Wise.
PLISKA (Pavel Georgiev – pavel_g@gbg.bg, Gergana Ilieva, Tihomir Tihov) The explorations continued in the southern aisle of the Great Basilica, to the south of the well – holy spring, in Sondage No. 21 of 1971 where two pits with sherds of the 8th – 9th centuries AD had been discovered. A trench up to 3.95 m deep was explored, with a water-conduit built of uneven stones and slabs on its bottom. The trench with the water-conduit reached the well – holy spring to the north. A layer was discovered under the pavement to the south of the aisle, containing finds of the 9th – beginning of the 10th centuries AD; a layer with fragmentary mortar was situated beneath, spread around the basilica in order to isolate its foundations and to level the terrain. The trench with the water-conduit was also documented in the southern churchyard of the Archbishopric, reaching the surrounding wall and continuing further south. The water-conduit connected the well – holy spring to a spring not located so far. The water-conduit was constructed after the proto-Bulgarian pagan cross-like temple was reconstructed and converted into a church with four conchs, or after the building was completely dismantled, but before the foundations of the Great Basilica were laid. Its construction was related to the resumed or the enhanced functions of the well – holy spring shortly before or after AD 865 when the Bulgars were converted to Christianity. A shallow pit was documented in the churchyard close to the pavement, containing animal bones, sherds, many of them with incised proto-Bulgarian symbol: |Y|, a bone awl. Two Christian graves were discovered: the first one contained the body of a woman with bones of a baby close to her head and the second one belonged to a man; both were laid in wooden coffins. The graves belonged to the cemetery that appeared after the buildings in the southern churchyard of the Archbishopric were destroyed at the end of the 10th – beginning of the 11th century AD. A lime kiln c. 3 m in diameter was explored, dated to the end of the 10th – beginning of the 11th century AD.
