Мегалитно светилище под Маркови кули

The cult place begins immediately after the last houses of Varosh, the old quarter of Prilep. The path to the medieval fortress of Chardaka on the summit begins where a karst spring issues from the rock, with a megalithic altar above it. Immediately after the spring stands the rock formation known as the Elephant (Слонът). The three rocky hills are dotted with many rock cuttings, cup-marks, sacrificial pits and ritual carvings, most often round or in the shape of a human footprint. At the southern foot of the rocks is a karst spring that was divinised in antiquity, judging by the many hollows and pits beside it which bear traces of ritual.

There are two rock arches within the sanctuary, on the westernmost and easternmost rocky peaks of the fortress. The western arch is a complex of many openings in the rock, oriented mainly to the east, south and west, and many rock cuttings are visible on the blocks around it. The eastern arch, at the eastern foot of Chardaka, the highest part of the citadel, faces south. A huge boulder rests on two others, and on the eastern supporting stone a whole system of rock altars is cut, connected by channels; these are traces of libations. Vasil Markov draws attention to the vault beneath, shaped like a honeycomb and filled with many rectangular hollows.

According to Prof. Vasil Markov, the arch at the eastern foot of Chardaka is marked by many “Krali Marko's footprints”, and its vault, formed of many round and rectangular hollows, is entirely analogous to the rock arch at the sanctuary of Selanov buk in the Western Rhodopes. A rock-cut basin on top of the arch's vault, with channels running out, is evidence of libations poured “from above”, which Prof. Aleksandar Fol has widely discussed from written sources as characteristic of the rites accompanying the Orphic mysteries.

Markov also points to the cult installation known as Vrten kamen, on the sacred road linking Markovi kuli with the sanctuary of Zlatovrah north of Prilep and marked by many megalithic altars. A round altar with an outflow channel is cut on a huge rock, and inside is a beehive-shaped niche whose vault and walls are covered with a network of rectangular hollows resembling a honeycomb. Markov suggests that it repeats the form of a rock beehive. In the morning the sun's rays enter through the large opening of the niche, and in the evening before sunset they pass through a small hole in the western part of the vault and light up the “honeycomb”.

The sanctuary is said to precede the monastery of Treskavets, where, according to legend, Krali Marko goes at Easter to purify himself. Field survey by Markov and his team recorded a sacred way marked by rock altars that links the two holy places. Legend holds that the returned Krali Marko walked this road on the night before Easter.