The Madara Rider, representing
the figure of a knight triumphing
over a lion, is carved into a 100-
m-high cliff near the village of
Madara in north-east Bulgaria.
Madara was the principal sacred
place of the First Bulgarian
Empire before Bulgaria’s
conversion to Christianity in the
9th century. The inscriptions
beside the sculpture tell about
events that occurred between
AD 705 and 801.