Madara is a village in northeastern Bulgaria

Bulgaria

Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

, part of Shumen

Shumen

Shumen is the tenth-largest city in Bulgaria and capital of Shumen Province. In the period 1950–1965 it was called Kolarovgrad, after the name of the communist leader Vasil Kolarov...

 municipality, Shumen Province

Shumen Province

-Religion:Religious adherence in the province according to 2001 census:-Transportation:Shumen lies on the main route between Varna and Sofia and is served by numerous trains and buses serving the city. The city is also very well connected with Istanbul which serves the large Turkish community in...

. Madara lies 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) east of the city of Shumen, at the western foot of the Madara plateau

Plateau

In geology and earth science, a plateau , also called a high plain or tableland, is an area of highland, usually consisting of relatively flat terrain. A highly eroded plateau is called a dissected plateau...

.

Madara is famous for the Madara National Historical and Archaeological Reserve 1.5 km (0.93205910497471 mi) east of the village, one of the 100 Tourist Sites of Bulgaria

100 Tourist Sites of Bulgaria

"100 Tourist Sites of Bulgaria" is a Bulgarian national movement established in 1966 to promote tourism among Bulgaria's most significant cultural, historic, and natural landmarks....

. The reserve includes Neolithic

Neolithic

The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...

 and Eneolithic findings, a Thracian

Thracians

The ancient Thracians were a group of Indo-European tribes inhabiting areas including Thrace in Southeastern Europe. They spoke the Thracian language – a scarcely attested branch of the Indo-European language family...

 settlement, Ancient Roman

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 villa

Roman villa

A Roman villa is a villa that was built or lived in during the Roman republic and the Roman Empire. A villa was originally a Roman country house built for the upper class...

 and fortress from the 2nd–5th century, medieval Bulgarian palace, pagan sanctuaries, Christian

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

 churches and monasteries and fortresses from the First Bulgarian Empire

First Bulgarian Empire

The First Bulgarian Empire was a medieval Bulgarian state founded in the north-eastern Balkans in c. 680 by the Bulgars, uniting with seven South Slavic tribes...

. There is also a cave monastery

Cave monastery

A cave monastery is a monastery built in caves, with possible outside facilities. St. Anthony the Great known as the founder of monasticism lived in a cave.- List of cave monasteries :*Albania**St...

 from the 12th–14th century. Most importantly, Madara is the location of the famous Madara Rider

Madara Rider

The Madara Rider or Madara Horseman is an early medieval large rock relief carved on the Madara Plateau east of Shumen in northeastern Bulgaria, near the village of Madara....

, an early medieval

Early Middle Ages

The Early Middle Ages was the period of European history lasting from the 5th century to approximately 1000. The Early Middle Ages followed the decline of the Western Roman Empire and preceded the High Middle Ages...

 (early 8th-century) large rock relief

Relief

Relief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...

 carved by the Bulgars

Bulgars

The Bulgars were a semi-nomadic who flourished in the Pontic Steppe and the Volga basin in the 7th century.The Bulgars emerge after the collapse of the Hunnic Empire in the 5th century....

 and also featuring several epigraph

Epigraphy

Epigraphy Epigraphy Epigraphy (from the , literally "on-writing", is the study of inscriptions or epigraphs as writing; that is, the science of identifying the graphemes and of classifying their use as to cultural context and date, elucidating their meaning and assessing what conclusions can be...

s of historic importance written in Medieval Greek

Medieval Greek

Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, is the stage of the Greek language between the beginning of the Middle Ages around 600 and the Ottoman conquest of the city of Constantinople in 1453. The latter date marked the end of the Middle Ages in Southeast Europe...

; the relief most likely dates to the reign of Tervel of Bulgaria

Tervel of Bulgaria

Khan Tervel also called Tarvel, or Terval, or Terbelis in some Byzantine sources, was the Emperor of the Bulgarians at the beginning of the 8th century. In 705 he received the title Caesar which was a precedent in history. He was probably a Christian like his grandfather Khan Kubrat...

.

The archaeological reserve was first studied by the Hungarian archaeologist Géza Fehér and then by the Czech-Bulgarian Karel Škorpil

Karel Škorpil

Karel Václav Škorpil was a Czech-Bulgarian archaeologist and museum worker credited along with his brother Hermann with the establishment of those two disciplines in Bulgaria....

 and the Bulgarian Rafail Popov.

In medieval times, the village was a Bulgarian fortress named Matora. It was mentioned in Ottoman

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 registers of 1481 as Matara. The modern village was founded by settlers from nearby Kyulevcha close to Kaspichan

Kaspichan

Kaspichan is a town in central northeastern Bulgaria, part of Shumen Province. It is located in the eastern Danubian Plain, some 70 km from the major Black Sea port Varna and around 120 km from the key Danube ports of Rousse and Silistra...

 after the Liberation of Bulgaria

Liberation of Bulgaria

In Bulgarian historiography, the term Liberation of Bulgaria is used to denote the events of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 that led to the re-establishment of Bulgarian state with the Treaty of San Stefano of March 3, 1878, after the complete conquest of the Second Bulgarian Empire, which...

; in the 1940s and 1950s, settlers from the Pirin

Pirin

The Pirin Mountains are a mountain range in southwestern Bulgaria, with Vihren the highest peak, situated at . The range extends about 40 km northwest-southeast, and about 25 km wide. Most of the range is protected in the Pirin National Park...

 and Sofia

Sofia

Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.27 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.Prehistoric settlements were excavated...

 regions arrived.

The truck

Truck

A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, with the smallest being mechanically similar to an automobile...

building works in Shumen are named Madara after the archaeological reserve.

Tourism

To see the rider is easy and out of charge, thanks to a long staircase which bring you directly to the foot of the cliff where the rider is carved.

External links

• Website about Madara