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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:Dryburgh Abbey on the banks of the River Tweed in the Scottish Borders was founded in 1150 in an agreement between Hugh de Morville, Constable of Scotland, and the Premonstratensian canons regular from Alnwick Abbey in Northumberland. The arrival of the canons along with their first abbot, Roger, took place in 1152.
It was burned by English troops in 1322, after which it was restored only to be again burned by Richard II in 1385, but it flourished in the fifteenth century. It was finally destroyed in 1544, briefly surviving until the Scottish Reformation, when it was given to the Earl of Mar by James VI of Scotland. It is now a designated scheduled monument and the surrounding landscape is included in the Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes in Scotland.
David Erskine, 11th Earl of Buchan bought the land in 1786. Sir Walter Scott and Douglas Haig are buried in its grounds.