The Shumen Fortress towered 3 кm to the North of the town of Shumen, and it lasted for more than 3200 years. This area was populated as early as the Early Iron Age /XII c. BC/. Later Thracians, Romans, Byzantines raised their strongholds there too.
      During the Early and Late Middle Ages the Shumen Fortress was a Bulgarian stronghold that had played an important part in the history. It lasted till the beginning of the Ottoman dominion.
      In 1444 during the crusade of Wladislaw III Yagelo, it was demolished and burnt down.
      The fortress is amongst the archaeological sites that have been most thoroughly studdied in the country. The fortress and cult architecture, farm and residential buildings and thousands of monuments testify to its diverse functions through the ages, and especially during the Second Bulgarian Kingdom.
      Today the Shumen fortress is exhibited as an open air museum.