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Средневековый город и крепость Хоталич

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Located right next to the contemporary town of Sevlievo, the city of Hotel existed during the Middle Ages as the administrative, economic and spiritual centre of the region. After the Ottoman invasion, the administrative district (nahia) of Hotalich was named after it. The existence of a large mediaeval settlement by the name of Hotel within the region of contemporary Sevlievo was known from a building inscription etched in stone, which was accidentally discovered by villagers in the region of the Batoshevski male monastery during the 1930`s. The historian Katsev-Burski read the inscription as: „This temple was built by Geno from Hotel and Petar from Tarnov." The inscription is from the mid-XIII century, the reign of Mihail Alen, which is known from another stone inscription preserved at the Museum of History and Archaeology of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. It tells that King Mihail Asen, son of the great Ivan Asen and grandson of the old Asen, built within the Matorievi woods (the mediaeval Slavic name of Stara Planina) a monastery in the name of the most holy Virgin Mary Matorska and John the evangelist. The monastery was stauropegic - subordinate solely to the Bulgarian Patriarch, and the King gifted it with ownership over three villages - Batoshevo, Viten and Ribare, so that the monastery could sustain itself from their incomes. Researchers of Sevlievo history have long sought the location of this city. It was thought to be in the Winding Wail area above the village of Yavorets, and after that - near Gradnitsya, yet they turned out to be small feudal castles and did not match the expectations for a large mediaeval centre. In 1979, during terracing and forestation within the Djevizili bunar area, located about 4 km north-west of Sevlievo, the workers of the Forestry authority came across stone walls. The town's history museum was immediately notified and salvage excavations were initiated. During the first season, the walls of two large Christian temples incorporated into one another - a Byzantine basilica from the V century and a Bulgarian single-nave church from the X century. Further research gradually unearthed tens of stone houses, workshops for metal processing, ceramic furnaces. In the eastern part was found another church, along with stalwart fortress walls, towers and entrances into the defence keep, which included a small boyar church of the Tarnovo type, a large living building, barracks, storage rooms, on the settlement's steep hillside. There was no doubt that Hotel - Hozhtelets - Hotalich, as it was named within the Ottoman tax registries from the XV, XVI and XVII centuries, was located there. The monetary material, the ceramics and the other clues pointed towards settled down life at the city from the end of the X century to the middle of XVII century. The city had four separate neighbourhoods, surrounded by stone walls, each of them featuring a larger living building - probably belonging of the neighbourhood elder. Most of the houses were two-story buildings, with a monolithic stone lower floor and an upper wooden floor, with preserved stone staircases to the second floor at places. More than 70 funerals have been found around the two churches in the city, complete with rich funerary inventory - rings, earrings, bracelets, ceramic and bone articles, glass beads. For more than three decades, the municipality of Sevlievo has provided funds for regular archaeological research and for the reservation of what has already been found. Thanks to these efforts, Hotalich is one of the best showcased archaeological sites in Bulgaria. Nearly ninety dwelling and agricultural buildings have been discovered and preserved, separated into four neighbourhoods, along with three churches. The citadel rose on the hard to reach hill above the city. As a result of decades of archaeological studies, more than 900 metres of fortress walls have been studied and preserved at a height of 3 m, as well as five gates. A quadrangular tower rises above the entire area, providing direct visibility to all surrounding fortresses.`