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Shumen Fortress is an archaeological site overlooking the city of Shumen in north-eastern Bulgaria. It is an ancient fortress with historical links to a village nearby traced to early Iron Age and later owned by the Thracians in the 5th century BC. Then, from 2nd to 4th centuries AD, it was controlled by the Romans who built towers and walls.
The fortress represents a substantial part of the history of Bulgaria. The Ancient Bulgars, semi-nomadic warrior tribes, arrived in what is in now north-eastern Bulgaria to the south of the Danube in the late 7th century AD and founded the First Bulgarian Empire. The fortress formed the town of Shumen during the First and Second Bulgarian Empire.
During the First Bulgarian Empire the fortress was part of a system of fortifications providing for the defense of Pliska and Preslav, capital cities, and the religious centre of Madara. It then functioned as a minor fort during the 10th–12th centuries, as compared to the glory, economic prosperity and military might it had during the 4th–6th centuries. In the 13th century it again prospered as a political and economic entity of the reborn Bulgarian Empire. When the Byzantines temporarily took control of Preslav in 1278 during the Uprising of Ivaylo Shumen also acquired importance as an administrative and military centre. The fortress continued to thrive in the 14th century until the Ottoman Turks captured it in 1388 during a campaign of their first vizier Çandarlı Ali Pasha.
In 1444 the fort was destroyed by the Ottomans after their victory in the Battle of Varna over a Christian army under Władysław III of Poland. The fortress remained deserted ever since.
The fortress was the best developed citadel during the 14th century. Archaeological excavations have been carried out since 1957 and many artefacts and structures have been unearthed. At the foot of the fortress, monasteries and churches were found; some of which were reconstructed in the 1980s. The restoration works completed in 2015 covered walls of the fortress, creating tracks for walking around the fortress, and also building turnstiles. Other infrastructure created to encourage tourism are artistic lighting and equipment for temperature and humidity control, publicity brochures and overall management aspects.
References:The Church of St Donatus name refers to Donatus of Zadar, who began construction on this church in the 9th century and ended it on the northeastern part of the Roman forum. It is the largest Pre-Romanesque building in Croatia.
The beginning of the building of the church was placed to the second half of the 8th century, and it is supposed to have been completed in the 9th century. The Zadar bishop and diplomat Donat (8th and 9th centuries) is credited with the building of the church. He led the representations of the Dalmatian cities to Constantinople and Charles the Great, which is why this church bears slight resemblance to Charlemagne's court chapels, especially the one in Aachen, and also to the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna. It belongs to the Pre-Romanesque architectural period.
The circular church, formerly domed, is 27 m high and is characterised by simplicity and technical primitivism.