Bitola Inscription

The Bitola inscription is a medieval stone inscription written in Old Church Slavonic. It was found in 1956 during the demolition of an old Ottoman mosque in the town of Bitola, Republic of Macedonia and it is now kept at the Institute and Museum of Bitola epigraphic monument as "a marble slab with Cyrillic letters of Ioan Vladislav from 1015/17". The text commemorates the fortification works on the fortress of Bitola under a certain Tsar Ivan. It is believed to date it from c. 1015 and the monarch in question is Tsar Ivan Vladislav of Bulgaria. According to some scholars, the inscription dates back from the 13th century, in which case it would be Tsar Ivan Asen of Bulgaria.