Kostoperska Karpa (Bone Washing Rock, Костоперска Карпа) is an archaeological site near the village Mlado Nagoricane (Младо Нагоричане) on 10 km northeast of Kumanovo, near the international road that goes east to Kyustendil.
The natural volcanic phenomenon called Zheligovski Kamen (Stone from Zheligovo, Жеглиговски Камен) is a crucial location in the history of the famous Zhegligovo area.
Kostoperska Karpa (Bone Washing Rock) since always has been a prominent landmark, and in the Iron Age and Late Antiquity, it developed into an important settlement. During the archaeological excavations on the site in the 1980s were identified cisterns and a church. On its northern slope, a series of ‘Constantinian’ tile-covered tombs were found.
Kostoperska Karpa sat at the heart of a densely-populated landscape. In the surrounding territory at least two more settlements, a Hellenistic hilltop foundation and a larger Roman/Late Antique site on the banks of the Pčinja, as well as twenty churches, ranging in date from the fourth century to the Turkish period, are known.
The most famous of these churches is the eleventh-century church of St George at Staro Nagoričane, renowned for its frescoes.
