Samuel's Fortress

Samuel's Fortress, situated in the Klyuch Gorge between the Belasitsa and Ograzhden mountains, is a medieval fortification forming part of a large defensive system probably built between 1009 and 1013 during Tsar Samuel's reign. According to eleventh-century Byzantine chroniclers such as John Skylitzes, George Kedrenos, John Zonaras and others, the Klyuch Gorge was protected by a broad barrier wall called a dema. Samuel's Fortress itself was built over a Thracian and an early Bulgarian Slavic settlement. Tsar Samuel fortified Kufalnitsa Hill with three concentric ramparts and two ditches. The inner rampart had a complex structure of stone and wooden beams, its crest topped by a broad rubble-stone wall. Foundations of a wooden observation and defensive tower connected to the stone wall have been found on the hilltop. The other two ramparts have identical embankment structures. Samuel's Fortress forms part of the Bulgarian fortification tradition and is associated with the events of 1014, including the Battle of Belasitsa. During this period the Byzantine emperor Basil II defeated the Bulgarian army in battle and subsequently blinded the captured Bulgarian soldiers. The fortress played an important role in strategic control of the Klyuch Gorge and served as a military command post. In 1916, during the First World War, Bogdan Filov and Yordan Ivanov visited sites associated with the Battle of Belasitsa and described the fortification's remains. Filov emphasised its historical importance and compared it with the fortification at Samuel's capital in Prespa.