Gigen
Encyclopedia
Gigen is a village in northern Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

, part of Gulyantsi Municipality
Gulyantsi Municipality
Gulyantsi Municipality is a municipality in Pleven Province, Northern Bulgaria, located along the right bank of Danube river, by the border with Romania. It is named after its administrative centre - the town of Gulyantsi...

, Pleven Province
Pleven Province
Pleven Province is a province located in central northern Bulgaria, bordering the Danube river, Romania and the Bulgarian provinces of Vratsa, Veliko Tarnovo and Lovech. It is divided into 11 subdivisions, called municipalities, that embrace a territory of 4,333.54 km² with a population, as...

. It is located near to the Danube River
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....

, close to the place where the Iskar River empties into it, opposite the Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

n town of Corabia
Corabia
Corabia is a small Danube port located in Olt County, Romania, which used to be part of the now-dissolved Romanaţi County before World War II...

.

Gigen is most famous for being built on the site of the important Roman colony of Oescus
Oescus
Oescus, or Palatiolon Palatiolum, was an ancient town in Moesia, northwest of the modern Bulgarian city of Pleven, near the village of Gigen. It is a Daco-Moesian toponym. Ptolemy calls it a Triballian town, but it later became Roman...

. The extensive ruins are located in the northwestern part of the village and were first associated with the ancient colony in the end of the 17th century. A bridge called built or reconstructed by Constantine I
Constantine I
Constantine the Great , also known as Constantine I or Saint Constantine, was Roman Emperor from 306 to 337. Well known for being the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity, Constantine and co-Emperor Licinius issued the Edict of Milan in 313, which proclaimed religious tolerance of all...

 and named Constantine's Bridge
Constantine's Bridge
Constantine's Bridge was a Roman bridge over the Danube. It was completed or rebuilt in 328 and remained in use for no more than four decades. With an overall length of 2437 m, 1137 m of which spanned the Danube's riverbed, Constantine's Bridge is considered the longest ancient river bridge and...

 in his honour used to link Oescus with Sucidava
Sucidava
Sucidava is a Dacian and Daco-Roman historical site, situated in Corabia, Romania on the north bank of the Danube...

 (modern Corabia) across the Danube in the 4th century.

Gigan is also known for an anti-Bogomil
Bogomilism
Bogomilism was a Gnostic religiopolitical sect founded in the First Bulgarian Empire by the priest Bogomil during the reign of Tsar Petar I in the 10th century...

 inscription in Old Bulgarian
Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavic was the first literary Slavic language, first developed by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius who were credited with standardizing the language and using it for translating the Bible and other Ancient Greek...

 dating to the 10th century, the rule of Tsar Peter I of Bulgaria
Peter I of Bulgaria
Peter I was emperor of Bulgaria from 27 May 927 to 969.-Early reign:Peter I was the son of Simeon I of Bulgaria by his second marriage to Maria Sursuvul, the sister of George Sursuvul. Peter had been born early in the 10th century, but it appears that his maternal uncle was very influential at...

. The text was discovered in the old village church, inscribed on a stone block 85 centimetres in width. According to the scientifically accepted reading, the text of the inscription is as follows:
, Gigen has a population of 2,192 inhabitants. It lies at 43°42′N 24°29′E, at 39 m above sea level.
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