EXPLORATIONS IN PAUTALIA – VELBAZHD – KYUSTENDIL (Doichin Grozdanov – doichyn_eg@abv.bg, Galina Grozdanova) The site is situated to the northwest from the northern fortification wall of Pautalia. Fourteen graves were explored, some of them partly or completely destroyed by modern excavation works. The graves are 1.29 – 2.69 m in depth and are oriented east – west (graves Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10 and 11), or north – south (graves Nos. 7, 8, 12 and 14). The grave constructions are three types: 1. Covered burial chamber of reused Roman bricks (grave No. 6); 2. Covered chamber constructed of Roman bricks (graves Nos. 4 and 13); 3. Chamber of ridge-roofed tegulae (graves Nos. 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11). The funerary ritual was inhumation. The deceased were rested on their back with hands either stretched along the body, or folded in the elbows. Four bronze coins, minted in the period AD 320 – 378, were found in graves Nos. 2, 3, 7 and 8. The cemetery had three phases: 1. From the beginning until the middle of the 4th century AD: graves oriented north – south and graves constructed of ridge-roofed tegulae (graves Nos. 7, 8, 12 and 14); 2. From the middle of the 4th until the second half of the 5th centuries AD: graves oriented east – west and graves constructed of tegulae (graves Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 5); 3. Early Middle Ages until the end of the 10th century: graves oriented east – west, graves constructed of tegulae (grave No. 6) and graves constructed of bricks (graves Nos. 4 and 13). A surrounding wall, 18 m long, dated from the middle of the 4th to the middle of the 5th centuries AD, and a parallel water-conduit of terracotta pipes, 14.50 m long, were discovered. Two parallel walls of a building of the first half of the 4th century AD and a room of a building of the 2nd – 4th centuries AD were documented.