ON THE WESTERN BORDER OF THE BULGARIAN STATE ON THE LOWER DANUBE, IMMEDIATELY AFTER ITS FOUNDATION

Abstract

The article attempts to establish where the western border of the Bulgarian state was immediately after its founding. For this purpose, parts of the texts, primarily those of Theophanes the Confessor, as more detailed in his narrative, have been examined again. It has been established that the geographical markers in the text are too conditional or inaccurate. For this reason, the identification of the Severi tribe with the bearers of the so-called Pasterskoe type ceramics was chosen as a starting point. This identification was made as early as the 1990s by Stefka Angelova and Lyudmila Doncheva-Petkova, and later further developed by Metodi Daskalov. Mapping of the necropolises with urn cremations, with a predominant presence of pastoral ceramics, shows their division into three geographical groups. Only one of these groups was known to Byzantine authors of the period. The other two are located west of the first. Taking as a marker the currently known necropolises of the bearers of Pasterskoe type ceramics – the Severi, it can be assumed that the western border of the state ran approximately along the course of the Rusenski Lom River.