The medieval complex located at the town of Murfatlar (at the time of its discovery – the village of Basarabi), North Dobrudzha, Republic of Romania, is the largest and most visited rock-cut monastery within the borders of the First Bulgarian Kingdom. It is situated in the northwest part of the Tibişir Hill, approximately 16 km west of the city of Constanţa.
The complex was discovered by chance in June 1957, in the course of works related to the exploitation of a stone quarry by the “Dobrudzha” Mining Company – Constanţa. The first expeditions took place in 1957– 1958 and 1960 – 1962 under the supervision of professor Ion Barnea from the Archaeological Institute in Bucharest.
In the period 2021 – 2023, the National Archaeological Institute with Museum (NAIM) at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences organized its own expedition with the support of the Museum for National History and Archaeology in Constanţa. The main goal of the expedition was the preparation of an entirely new corpus of documentation, through which the monument would be preserved, given its currently alarming state.
As far as its horizontal plan is concerned, the complex occupies an area of 10000 sq.m and it comprises the following functional units: four superimposed rock-cut churches, two chapels, two crypts, four galleries, and the trench of a stone quarry, from which most likely was extracted construction material for the making of the closest portions of the Great Dobrudzha Massif.
The outstanding scientific value of Murfatlar is determined by its over 500 graffiti, of which 132 are textual (70 of them are newly registered by the NAIM team). Today many of them are invisible to the naked eye.
Four different graphic systems were used for their carving: Rune-like, Glagolitic, Greek, and Cyrillic. The earliest among them are the rune-like characters, used for creating 83 inscriptions. Most of the Cyrillic and Greek inscriptions – respectively 30 and 19 – are of pilgrimage related content or convey quotations from the New Testament (the Gospel of Mark) and the Psalter, while the Glagolitic ones contain only personal names. The greatest concentration of Cyrillic and Greek textual graffiti is in the so-called catholic church (Church 4), which is also the largest in the complex. Almost all inscriptions date to the period of the “Golden Century” and demonstrate the exceptionally high level of literacy of their authors, as well as their experience in the compiling of manuscripts. The latest Cyrillic inscription dates to the 14th c., which either points to the upper chronological limit of the complex’ existence, or reflects its state as one of its last visitors saw it.
Based on their content, the pictorial graffiti can be divided into anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, anthropo-zoomorphic, floral, geometrical, and depictions of sailing vessels. The most expressive ones among them are the human figures.
