HOTALICH FORTRESS (Nadezhda Boteva – nadejda_boteva@abv.bg) The explorations continued to the east of Church No. 3 with the adjacent cemetery, discovered in the beginning of the 1980s. Church No. 3 was built around the middle of the 13th century over the remains of earlier buildings of the Early Byzantine period. Twenty graves in the cemetery were discovered. All the bodies were laid in wooden coffins. The graves were dug into the remains of earlier buildings of the Early Byzantine period. The grave goods included bronze bracelets, necklaces of color glass beads, spherical buttons and coins of the middle of the 13th century. A building constructed of timber plastered with clay and 5 m by 3 m in size, was explored. A hearth was discovered inside. Sherds and coins of the end of the 5th century AD were found.