The fortress of Stari Ras, together with the Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, the monasteries of Đurđevi Stupovi and Sopoćani, is a masterpiece of human creativity and a unique testimony to the history of Serbia. Ras, the largest fortress on the eastern border of the early medieval Serbian state, or through the Latin form of the name Raška, became the name for all medieval Serbia, after which the Serbs were called Rašani.

The place where the fortress of Ras is located has a rich history dating back to the Bronze Age. A Roman fortification was located here, and during late antiquity, residential buildings and a basilica were built. The question of the name Ras remains open, although most scholars agree that the name Ras comes from the name of the fort Arsa (Greek ΑΡΣΑ), mentioned by the Byzantine historian Procopius in the 6th century. There are also opinions that the name of the city originated from the name of the Raška river, whose source is in close proximity to the city; this name may have Illyrian origins and may mean "something falling," which could refer to the nearby mountain river. The emergence of Roman Arsa should be linked to the most important factor of all development, which is the nearby rich deposits of iron ore. The name of the city is first mentioned in the work "De Administrando Imperio" by Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, who mentioned this fortress in the account of battles between the Serbs and Bulgarians at the end of the 9th century. From the 9th to the early 12th century, the fortress was held first by the Bulgarians, and then alternately by the Serbs and Byzantines. According to Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, the Bulgarians conquered Raška around 924.

About these events, Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus writes:

During the reign of the same Vlastimir, Presiam, the archon of Bulgaria, went to war against the Serbs, wishing to subjugate them, but fighting for three years, he not only achieved nothing but also lost most of his army. After the death of archon Vlastimir, power in Serbia was inherited by his three sons: Mutimir, Strojimir, and Gojnik, who divided the country. At their time appeared the archon of Bulgaria Michael Boris, who wished to avenge the defeat of his father Presiam and start a war; and the Serbs defeated him, and his son Vladimir was taken prisoner along with twelve great boyars. Because of the suffering of his son, Boris then, though against his will, reconciled with the Serbs. Wishing to return to Bulgaria and fearing that the Serbs might ambush him somewhere on the way, he asked the children of archon Mutimir, Bran and Stefan, to be his escort, who accompanied him to the very border, in Ras. For this kindness, Boris gave them great gifts, and they returned to him as a guest two slaves, two falcons, two dogs, and eighty furs.

Serbia under Časlav Klonimirović (927–950) included Raška, Bosnia, and Travunia, and the center of the country was in the city of Ras. After the fall of the Bulgarian Empire in 971, Ras again became part of Byzantium. After this event, Serbia began to weaken and recognized Byzantine rule, and then became part of the state of Emperor Samuel. After the collapse of this Bulgarian state, Serbia again recognized the supreme power of Byzantium and for a short time was under the rule of King Béla. At that time, there was a Raška eparchy headquartered in the Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in Ras, which was subordinate to the Archbishopric of Ohrid. After this period, Raška weakened and came under the influence of Duklja.

Serbian sources mention it at the beginning of the 13th century, on one of the last pages of Vukan's Gospel and in the Life of Saint Simeon.

The fortress of Ras is located on a plateau at the top of a mountain and has the shape of an irregular quadrilateral, 180 meters long, and 20 to 60 meters wide. One side of the fortress of Stari Ras faces a cliff, so approach from this side is practically impossible; on the other side, the fortress has a gentle slope, so the wall is reinforced with four small and one large towers.

After the 11th century, the fortress was repeatedly demolished and rebuilt. The restoration of the fortress in the 11th century is attributed to the Serbs. From the testimonies of Anna Komnene, it is quite clear that Prince Vukan controlled the fortress of Ras from 1083. Byzantium invaded Serbia in 1091, after which the fortress again passed into Byzantine hands. Under the Grand Prefect Uroš I, Serbia regained Ras. Historian John Kinnamos describes how the Byzantine general Kritophl fled from the city of Ras from the "Serb rebels." The fortress was demolished by the Serbs in 1127 and rebuilt by the Byzantines during the fourth decade of the 12th century; stone walls with gates protected by two towers were erected. Although the fortress was renewed and strengthened, it was again damaged in 1149 during battles that Emperor Manuel I Komnenos (1143–1180) waged against the Raška prefect Uroš II (circa 1145–1162). According to John Kinnamos: "Entering Dalmatia, the tsar destroyed the fortress of Ras and destroyed everything on the way, leaving there countless prisoners, whom he made slaves, under the supervision of the garrison of Constantine Sebastokrator, who was called Angel, and he himself moved further."

This was followed by the last reconstruction of the fortress; the entrance gates were walled up, and new ones were opened next to the fortified main tower. In the northern part of the fortification, a palace was erected, and inside, several log houses. On this occasion, Byzantium left the Serbian population in the fortress under Byzantine command, as confirmed by ceramic finds. After Emperor Manuel I Komnenos defeated the army of the Raška prefect Deže in 1163, in 1165–1166, the Grand Prefect was appointed Tihomir, brother of Stefan Nemanja. His capital was most likely in Ras.

When Stefan Nemanja became the head of the Serbian state, Ras became his main stronghold. When Nemanja began to assert claims to the throne, he entered into conflict with his brothers, who held him captive in a cave around 1166/67; it is assumed that this cave was located on the southeastern slope of the settlement. There was a complex of the Monastery of Archangel Michael, which was built at the end of the 12th or in the first decades of the 13th century. The monastery church was small, almost square. In the vicinity of the monastery, there are inaccessible hermitages in the rocks where monks engaged in copying activities. Here, Elder Simeon in 1202 wrote Vukan's Gospel, in the text of which there is the following note: "to his lord the great prefect... in the city of Ras."

After the victory over his brothers at Pantina in 1170, Stefan Nemanja took power over Ras, and it became his main stronghold. In gratitude to Saint George, who, according to legend, saved him from the cave, in 1171 he built a monastery.

In Ras, the most important political decisions of the Serbian state of that time were made. The Grand Prefect presented the most important issues to the State Assembly, attended by clergy and nobles. In Ras, in the Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul around 1186, a council was held, at which it was decided to eradicate the Bogomil heresy by force, and there on March 25, 1196, Nemanja handed the throne to Stefan the First-Crowned. After abdicating, Nemanja and his wife Anna retired to a monastery. Anna, who took the monastic name Anastasia, spent the rest of her life in the women's monastery of the Virgin Mary in Ras. Today, the exact location of this monastery is unknown.

The city of Ras, besides its role as the political center of a stable and strong Raška, became the cultural center of the state at the end of the 12th century. Some of the oldest surviving works of Serbian art were created in Ras. The miniatures of Vukan's Gospel of 1202, now kept in Saint Petersburg, Russia, are the oldest surviving work of Raška painting, which formed in the cells of educated Serbian hermits of the late 12th century. The Gospel is very important for understanding the history of the language in the subsequent history of the Serbian recension of Old Church Slavonic script.

After Serbia expanded eastward from the 12th century and in the 14th century stretched from the Danube to the Corinthian Gulf, and from Thrace to the Adriatic Sea, the city became the center of a prosperous country. Here, during the reign of Radoslav Nemanjić from 1230, the first Serbian mint operated, which burned down in a fire in 1233 when the Serbian nobility overthrew King Radoslav and placed his brother Vladislav on the throne. The fortress was completely destroyed by the Turks, so today Ras is only ruins of an irregular shape, reinforced by five towers, and inside their foundations of several objects can be guessed. In the 14th and the first half of the 15th century, the city's political significance diminished, but at the same time, due to the development of trade, it acquired economic importance, which led to the enrichment of its inhabitants and accelerated development of the trading district.

After 1427, the city was under the rule of Despot Đurađ Branković, and one of the squares was called the Despot's Square. After the first fall of the despotate in 1439, the entire area was already under Turkish rule, and after the restoration of the despotate in 1444, it was again annexed to Serbia. In 1455, the fortress was finally captured by the Ottomans. After the Turks conquered Bosnia in 1463, the Vilayet of Ras was abolished and annexed to the Vilayet of Yelets. Around 1461, the famous Turkish commander Isa-bey Ishaković founded a new trading post nearby, which the Turks called Yeni Pazar (New Bazaar, i.e., Novi Pazar), while the neighboring old Trgovište was called Old Bazaar (Turkish Eski Pazar). At the time of Novi Pazar's founding, old Trgovište was an urban-type settlement surrounded by vineyards and rural trading and craft districts. With the founding of Novi Pazar, old Trgovište began to decline. Trade slowly shifted to the new square, which was economically stronger and better located. At the end of the 15th century, Novi Pazar and Ras are mentioned as two separate settlements.

After the 15th century, Ras is mentioned very rarely. In the late 17th century, for a century, the entire region suffered greatly in the events preceding the Great Migration, and then the nearby monastery of Sopoćani suffered. After that, Ras probably survived as an inhabited place for some time.

The great monuments of architecture and painting preserved today, which were created or restored at the end of the 12th and beginning of the 13th century (the Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, Georgije's Steps, Sopoćani) testify to the grandeur and importance of cultural activity that existed in Ras and its surroundings. Because of this, at the UNESCO session in Cairo, Egypt, the medieval complex of Stari Ras and Sopoćani was inscribed on the World Heritage List, which includes: the Gradina fortress with the lower town of Trgovište, the Sopoćani monastery, the Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and the Đurđevi Stupovi monastery.

Extensive archaeological research began at the end of 1971, and much work remains to be done to accurately determine what the complex, which consists of several archaeological monuments in the vicinity of Novi Pazar, conceals. Since the entire complex is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the research itself is conducted according to a program of study, preservation, landscaping, and use. However, the last more serious systematic excavations were carried out in the early 1990s, after which the research stopped. Unfortunately, the sites associated with old Ras are in poor condition and abandoned.

Sources:

https://sr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stari_Ras