Tablet with Cyrillic text from Veliki Preslav, east of the Round Church, in a workshop for painted ceramics (monastery scriptorium)

10th c.

Length 19.8 cm; Width 11.5 cm; Thickness 0.05 cm; Weight 219 g

Three sides of the tablet are preserved with a missing lower end. Reconstructed. The tablet is made of white kaolin clay, inscribed with letters drawn with dark brown paint, and covered by a colourless glaze. On the front side is a Cyrillic text of which up to 12 lines are preserved. The height of the letters is 0.6 cm, the spacing between the lines is 1 cm. The inscription is part of a liturgical text. The back side is smooth.

The tablet has been discovered together with fragments from other ceramic tiles with Cyrillic letters during archaeological excavations in a painted pottery workshop (mobnastery scriptorium ?) east of the Round Church in Preslav.

The tablet is part of the Museum’s permanent exhibition and is on display in the Middle Ages Hall.

Bibliography:

Господинов 1946: Ю. Господинов. Нови находки в Преслав. – Известия на Българския археологически институт, XV, 1946, 82-85.

Гошев 1961: И. Гошев. Старобългарски глаголически и кирилски надписи от IX – X в. София, 1961.

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До портите 2019: С. Горянова, Г. Грозданова (съст. и ред.). До портите на княжеския двор. Съкровища от Велики Преслав. Каталози, том XV. София, 2019.

Popkonstantinov, Kronsteiner 1994: K. Popkonstantinov, O. Kronsteiner. Altbulgarische Inschriften. I. Die Slawischen Sprachen, 36. Salzburg-Wien, 1994.