23 October 2009 | The recent discovery of the limestone quarries that Tsar Simeon I the Great used to build his imperial palaces shed light on a mystery that has perplexed archaeologists for the last century.

Located close to the village of Srednya in north-eastern Bulgaria, the quarries were accidentally discovered by employees of the Shumen Plateau Natural Park, who were mapping out the region.

“When I saw all that, I nearly passed out. I needed several minutes to realize what was in front of my eyes was an old quarry,” said Georgi Maystorski, Director of the Shumen Regional History Museum, told media. Specialists from the museum were summoned to the location, after the park employees stumbled upon a small cave, which they initially took for a small rock monastery.

The find solves the mystery that has puzzled archaeologists for over a century, as they have tried to establish where the materials for the Tsar’s monumental construction projects came from.

The structure and size of the stones at the quarry are exactly the same as those found at the ruins of the imperial palace and fortress walls of Preslav, which served as the capital of the First Bulgarian Empire from 893 to 972 and was one of the most important cities of medieval south-eastern Europe.

Simeon I the Great ruled over Bulgaria from 893 to 927, during the First Bulgarian Empire. His successful campaigns against the Byzantines, Magyars and Serbs led Bulgaria to its greatest territorial expansion ever. Simeon’s reign is known as a period of cultural prosperity and enlightenment, and it is frequently called the Golden Age of Bulgarian culture.

Upon coming to the throne, Simeon decided to move the state’s capital from the still somewhat pagan Pliska to Preslav. According to some chronicles, it took the ruler 28 years to establish and build up his new capital.

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