Lyutitsa – The Marble City

It has been only two years since the exploration of the great medieval fortress Lyutitsa, very close to Ivaylovrad, near the village Rogozovo, started. Lyutitsa is a male Slavonic name, like Dobrotitsa and Ivanitsa. This most preserved fortress in Bulgaria was literally "taken out" of the ancient forest. After the latest findings, the archaeologists know much more about the history of this incredible place. Marble here is just construction material – the whole fortification has been built of marble, which at that time had most probably been exctracted right on the spot. So Lyutitsa obtained the name The Marble City. The fortification, almost fully preserved, surrounds an area of 25 decares. The wall has had 14 towers, today 10 can be seen, and one rises at 10 meters of height. Once, from the octagonal tower, one could have seen the minarets of Sultan Selim Mosque in Odrin (Edirne). The findings at the fortress are about 100 so far - rings, earrings, jewelry, household items, Latin coins. Especially valuable, according to the archeologists, are the discovered gold-silver coins (dublets) - the so called Byzantine groshes (pennies), which provide information about the history of the fortress in XIV century.