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The Madara Rider is engraved on a 100-metre-high rock near the city of Madara in northeast Bulgaria and symbolises a knight triumphing beyond a lion. Before Bulgaria’s religion in the 9th century, Madara was the First Bulgarian Empire’s most revered monument. The markings next to the sculpture describe events between 705 and 801.
The Madara Rider, also named the Madara Horseman, is a massive rock relief carved on the Madara Plateau east of Shumen in northeastern Bulgaria, close to the town of Madara, in the early medieval period. The structure was created as part of the Bulgar Khan Tervel in the late seventh or early eighth century.
Exceptional Universal Value
The Madara Rider is a one-of-a-kind sculpture, a one-of-a-kind piece of artwork, made during the initial periods of the Bulgarian state’s foundation, around the turn of the eighth century. It’s the only monument in its world, nothing like it in Europe. It has been preserved in its original condition, with no changes in the past or present.
It is significant not only as a work of Bulgarian sculpture, with its essential realism characteristics, but also as a historical document original story from the early years of the Bulgarian state’s foundation. In actuality, the inscription encircling the sculpture constitutes a record of significant events during the reign of three renowned Khans: Travel, Kormisos, and Omurtag.
Description of the Madara Rider
In an almost vertical 100 m (328 ft) high rock, the relief represents a gorgeous 23 m (75 ft) horseman above the earth’s surface. It is nearly natural in size. On the right, a horseman thrusts a spear into a lion lying at his horse’s feet, while on the left, a dog chases after the knight. Due to the statue’s degradation and poor state, the carving of the horseman’s halo and apparel and the bird next to the horseman’s face are scarcely discernible. Carbonate pictures from Saltovo, Soulek, Pliska, and Veliki Preslav are equivalent to the relief.
Integrity
The Madara Horseman’s rock relief contains enough features to display within its bounds. It is located within an archaeological reserve containing other up to 2000-year-old archaeological structures. The set borders and the protection zone guarantee that the property’s surroundings are preserved.
The relief has a comprehensive and long conservation challenge due to the shaky stability of the supporting rock, notwithstanding minor alterations in the property’s integrity. Due to wind erosion, surface water run-off from heavy rain and melting snow, the granite is eroding, and biological coatings. Numerous ancient, geodesic, geological, hydrological, static, seismograph, physical chemistry, and, most recently, scientific biological studies have been done on the land. These special research activities have been combined into a database, defining the criteria for rapid conservation programs. A worldwide initiative to find solutions for the relief’s maintenance was accomplished in 2007, and an analysis of selected articles is underway.
Authenticity
The Madara Horseman relief’s layout and design, position and context, elements and composition, and soul and emotion have preserved their uniqueness.
Protection and Management Requirements
The process was carried out as a result of:
– Subdelegated regulation and the Cultural Heritage Law (Official Gazette No.19 of 2009). This legislation governs Bulgaria’s immovable cultural history investigation, study, safeguarding, presentation, and the formulation of Protection and Development plans for the country’s inscribed World Heritage Site of immovable cultural properties.
In addition, secondary law (Ordinance No. 22 on Protection of the Archaeological and Historical Reserves of Pliska, Preslav, and Madara, published in the Official Gazette No. 14 of 1981) enacted by the authorities in 1981 applies.
The proposed interventions set out by the 2007 Interesting effort must be implemented to ensure the relief’s protection.
Where to Find It
Despite the place’s mystique, this relief is not buried; instead, it is a figure of a guy on a horse sculpted into a rock 23 metres above the ground. The picture is 2.5 metres in height and 3 metres in width.
The carving was rediscovered in the town of Madara, 18 kilometres east of Shumen and 75 kilometres west of Varna.
Conclusion
This region, like Perperikon, is thought to have been a holy spot for Bulgarians for many generations. An old Thracian sanctuary assigned to Tangra (an ancient Bulgarian God) and what looks to be an early Christian chapel in the region of the Madara Rider. That is to say, regardless of the population’s views, this place was picked as a place with a high energy level and was therefore retained for religious rituals over the ages. The complex typically dates to the second quarter of the ninth century, with the pottery dating to the 8th and 10th centuries based on 1970s investigations. Some claim that the first structures were built following the Christian conversion.
