Dzhumaya Mosque

One of the oldest working mosques in the Balkans, built at the end of the fourteenth century under Sultan Murad I, soon after the Ottomans took Philippopolis. The building belongs to the multi-domed type: nine lead domes on four piers, masonry of alternating courses of stone and brick, and a minaret with a spiral staircase inside. Painting from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries survives within — floral ornament and calligraphy across the vaults. The mosque stands on a square directly above the excavated end of the ancient stadium, so both sites are visible from one spot: the minaret above medieval masonry and the Roman seating tiers below the level of the pavement. An old confectioner's works next door, where they brew boza and serve pumpkin baklava. The mosque is in use; it is open to visitors outside prayer times, and women need a headscarf.

On the map