Bukelon

Bukelon occupies a hill above the Tundzha valley in eastern Thrace, north of Adrianople. Its medieval tower rose upon the foundations of an older fortified site, and pottery from the town on the hill reveals connections with Adrianople and Didymoteichon. In 1205 the Bulgarian tsar Kaloyan defeated a Latin army in the country between Bukelon and Adrianople, capturing Emperor Baldwin of Flanders. Ottoman records of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries also mention military households living near the fortress, heirs to older local traditions of service.