Abstract

The paper presents two silver openwork appliqués found in the early 1990s in Rogachevo, a village near the town of Balchik, and currently kept in the collections of the National Museum of History in Sofia under Inv. № 33281 and 33282. The appliqués are broken and have missing fragments. One of them depicts St. George the Dragon Slayer, who has a cypress tree on each side of him. The other features an unidentifiable saint shown facing forward from the waist up. Several similar objects are presented in this paper, almost all originating from the Western Balkans and made in the same style, as typical for the era. They have been dated to the 12th century, allowing the Rogachevo appliqués to be attributed to the same period. This paper also presents a hypothesis that the Rogachevo appliqués were part of a belt belonging to a clergyman. One can only guess how they came to be near Rogachevo, since nothing is known about the village’s history during the period.