caption father predecessor successor death_date title birth_date image article_title name reign
modern icon of emperor tervel asparukh asparukh kormesiy 721 emperor of bulgaria 675 march 2013 saint tribellius.jpg tervel of bulgaria
 tervel 700 -- 721
tervel of bulgaria

khan tervel -lrb- -rrb- also called `` tarvel '' , or `` terval '' , or `` terbelis '' in some byzantine sources , was the emperor of bulgaria during the first bulgarian empire at the beginning of the 8th century .
in 705 emperor justinian ii named him caesar , the first foreigner to receive this title .
he was probably a christian like his grandfather khan kubrat .
tervel played an important role in defeating the arabs during the siege of constantinople in 717 -- 718 .
the nominalia of the bulgarian khans states that tervel belonged to the dulo clan and reigned for 21 years .
according to the chronology developed by moskov , tervel would have reigned 695 -- 715 .
other chronologies place his reign in 701 -- 718 or 700 -- 721 , but can not be reconciled with the testimony of the `` imennik '' .
the testimony of the source and some later traditions allow identifying tervel as the son and heir of his predecessor asparukh , who had perhaps died in battle against the khazars .
