The ancient Preslav came into being as a military camp with a fortified palace and a garrison during the first half of the 9th century in the time of Kan Omourtag (814-831). It was promoted to a capital city by Simeon I (893-927), who moved the capital here from Pliska and within a short time the town became established as an administrative, religious and cultural centre of the medieval Bulgarian state, renowned for its remarkable monumental construction, by the achievements of the applied arts, stone sculpture, painted pottery, by its literary school. Sexagon by Yoan Exarch describes the exceptional brilliance and magnificence of the royal capital. As a capital of the Bulgarian Kingdom from 893 until 969, the town has been directly associated with the unprecedented upsurge and flowering of culture and literature during the period, known as a Golden Age of Bulgarian Culture.

Bulgarian Knyaz and, later on, Tsar Simeon the Great, one of the most enlightened European rulers, has been credited with the construction and enrichment of the capital city of Preslav. An exceptional statesman, warrior and man of letters (a graduate of the Magnaour School in Constantinople), Simeon I succeeded in turning Preslav into the second most outstanding city in Southeast Europe, inferior only to the capital of Byzantium. Working there were the most talented Bulgarian men of letters of the age – Yoan Exarch, Chernorizets [Monk] Hrabur, Constantin of Preslav, Presbyter Kozma, Toudor Doksov. The continuators of the cause of Cyril and Methodius, in just a few decades they transformed the Old Bulgarian language from a church service language into one of the richest literary languages of Europe of that time.

In 969 the town was seized by the troops of Knyaz Svetoslav I Igorevich of Kiev, but it rapidly regained its original grandeur and importance. During the time of Byzantine domination, it was called Yoanopolis. In the 13th-14th century it was a fortified city and a bishopric centre. In 1388 it fell under Ottoman domination.

The excavations of the medieval city of Preslav began in 1897. The city, extending on an area of 5 sq km in a locality, surrounded by hills, had been protected by a strong fortification system, consisting of two concentric fortress walls, encircling the outer and the inner town. The outer town was fortified by a strong stonewall in the form of an irregular quadrangle. The fortress walls climbed up the elevations of the hills around and along the bank of the river. Built out of

large limestone pieces, held together by white concrete, they were 3.5 m thick. The inner city was almost in the middle of the outer city.

Its fortress wall is L-shaped with round towers put up in its corners and quadrangular towers on the walls.

The palace compound, consisting of two monumental buildings, was built on top the high plateau of the inner city. The big palace (the Throne Hall) is 35x22.5 m, built of large stone blocks. The uncovered fragments of architectural details give an idea of the elaborate decoration of the ceremonious royal hall, in the form of a three-nave basilica with two rows of free-standing marble columns. A secret exit crossed the western wall of the ground floor, passing under the pavement east of it. The small palace (the residential palace), about 16 m long, was also built of stone ashlars.

The Round (Golden) Church (10th century) is characterized by an original artistic design and exquisite plastic decorations. It consists of a rotund, a narthex and an atrium. The rotund was covered by a semispherical gilt-plated dome, whereby its shape was additionally emphasized by 12 lean columns, surrounding it in a circle. Rising in the centre of the rotund was a marble pulpit. There used to be a wall in the centre of the atrium. The pieces of marble columns, capitals with stylized acanthus, parts of cornices, fine columns encrusted with multicoloured slabs, ceramic slabs, etc. come to show that the church had had an exclusively rich architectural decoration. The walls of the church had been faced to a certain height by marble, followed by wall mosaics of glass, stone, ceramic and guilt cubes. Remains of structures of different assignments were also uncovered during the excavations of the old Preslav: dwellings, workshops, ateliers, baths, as well as a water pipe system.

A rich archaeological museum has been established. Of particular interest among its exhibits is the ceramic icon of St Theodore Stratylatus, made up of 20 painted slabs (9th-10th century) and the unique collection of lead seals of Bulgarian and Byzantine rulers and high-ranking officials.