The medieval Greek–language Bulgarian inscription covers the upper part of a marble column which also features, in its bottom part, the later Latinepitaph of Norman commander Robert de Montfort who died in 1108, with a cross in the middle of the column. The column was discovered by Austro-Hungarian soldiers during World War I 25 kilometres southwest of the Albanian town of Berat, near Ballshi, among the ruins of a monastery.
The Ballshi inscription is a key domestic source giving important information about the Christianization of the Bulgarians and the location of the southwestern border of the First Bulgarian Empire and the region of Kutmichevitsa during the rule of Boris. Saint Clement of Ohrid's concise biography by Demetrios Chomatenos, early 13th-century Archbishop of Ohrid, hints at the existence of other similar stone columns in the region of Gllavenica, notifying of the baptism of the Bulgarians. Chomatenos even attributes their construction to Clement:
The current location of the inscription is not known. In the first half of the 20th century, it was exhibited in a museum in Durrës. The National Archaeological Museum in Sofia preserves a plaster print of the epigraph.
