The Murfatlar monastery, dated to the 9th–11th century, is a medieval religious complex of outstanding scientific value. The monastery is best known for rich pictorial graffiti and dozens of Cyrillic, Glagolitic, Greek and rune-like textual graffiti on its walls.
An interdisciplinary expedition worked at the site during the period 2021–2023. The efforts of the interdisciplinary team were directed towards new documentation of the most important parts of the complex. This was done with the use of contemporary methods and techniques, which provide a new perspective on this site. Four fieldwork campaigns resulted in a series of discoveries and rediscoveries of crucial details of the complex’ architecture, including areas that had hitherto remained unpublished. Up until now unknown pictorial and textual graffiti were documented, of which some have substantial bearing on the relative chronology.
These finds points to the exceptional historical and cultural value of the monument. Three project participants present their work on documentation and contextualization of the graffiti:
- E. Komatarova-Balinova is going to present general information about the site, history of research and contemporary techniques of documentation.
- A. Granberg will discuss the documentation, dating and contextualization of the Cyrillic, Glagolitic and rune-like inscriptions in the monastery, as well as the agents involved in graffiti production, and the level of their literacy.
- P. Charalampakis is going to present the Greek inscriptions, monograms, ligatures, Christograms and Staurograms found at the site.
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Evgenia Komatarova-Balinova, the project leader, is Doctor of Archaeology. She has been working at the National Archaeological Institute with Museum at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, since 2012. Her main research interests are archaeology of the early medieval Eurasian nomads, funeral rites, archaeology of the first capitals in Eastern Europe, Pagan and Early Christian graffiti. She is the author of 25 studies since 2010, and, together with Yavor Miltenov and Antoaneta Granberg, the author of “Church № 4 from the Murfatlar rock complex: Some newly documented graffiti along the east-west axis and their analogies.” Pontica 55 (2023, in press).
Antoaneta Granberg is associate professor at the Department of Languages and Literatures, University of Gothenburg (2007–). Her main research interests are the transmission of Old Church Slavonic texts, descriptions of Cyrillic manuscripts and early printed books in Swedish repositories, and the development of literacy in connection to the process of Christianization. Granberg is the editor of Cyrillic manuscripts: Script and Language, Scribes and Collections (under press, Peter Lang 2023).
Pantelis Charalampakis, is Doctor of History (2008). He has been working at the National Archaeological Institute with Museum at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, since 2020. His main research interests are Byzantine sigillography, prosopography and epigraphy, as well as the Late Antique and Medieval history of the Crimea. He is the author, together with Maria Campagnolo-Pothitou, of “The Radenos family: a prosopographic study through literary and sigillographic evidence”, Revue des Etudes Byzantines 77 (2019), and co-editor, with Olga Karagiorgou and Christos Malatras, of TAKTIKON. Studies on the Prosopography and Administration of the Byzantine themata (Athens, 2021).
