Black Sea coast - Archaeology in Bulgaria. and Beyond

The newly discovered Late Roman / Early Byzantine thermae are the second public baths of ancient Odessos, today’s Varna, dating from the 5th – 6th century AD, after the already known Small (South) Roman Thermae. The much more sizable Large Roman Thermae of Odessos go back earlier, dating to the 2nd century AD. Photo: BTA

The ruins of a building of thermae (public baths) from the 5^th century AD, the time of the early Eastern Roman Empire, today more commonly known as Byzantium, have been discovered in the downtown of the Bulgarian Black Sea city of Varna.

The discovery has added a new layer of information about the life of the Ancient Greek, Thracian, and Roman city of Odessos (Odessus), the Antiquity predecessor of today’s Varna.

Bulgaria’s Varna is already known for its especially well preserved Roman baths, or thermae, including both the Large Roman Thermae and the Small Roman Thermae, with the former being the largest known Roman remains from a single structure in Bulgaria, the largest Roman baths in the Balkans, and the fourth largest known Roman public baths in Europe.

In recent years, Varna Municipality built a new visitor center for the Large Roman Thermae of ancient Odessos to enable tourists to see the impressive archaeological site.

The Large Thermae of ancient Odessos were built in the 2^nd century AD, while the Small Thermae were built in the 5^th – 6^th century AD – which is roughly the period that the newly discovered public baths are also dated to.

The newly found thermae in Bulgaria’s Varna have been exposed during the excavation of a private property.

The archaeologists first reached their ruins last year but at first decided that they had discovered a water storage facility with a water fountain as part of a nymphaeum, i.e. an Antiquity Era shrine dedicated to the Nymphs and Aphrodite from Ancient Greek, Thracian, and Roman mythology.

During their 2019 excavations on the site, however, the researchers discovered evidence that the building in question was likely built for the purpose of being used as thermae, i.e. public baths, reveals archaeologist Elina Mircheva from the Varna Museum of Archaeology, who is deputy head of the archaeological team, as cited by BTA.

The excavations have exposed different parts of the Late Antiquity building which have a hypocaust, i.e. Roman underfloor heating, a typical feature of ancient public baths.

The previously unknown Late Antiquity building in downtown Varna from the 400s AD was at first thought to be an urban water reservoir with a shrine dedicated to the Nymphs and Aphrodite, before the discovery of hypocaust (underfloor heating) suggested it was a public bath. Photos: BTA

According to Mircheva, when it was constructed in the early 400s AD, the building in question was certainly meant as thermae (public baths).

Subsequently, it might have been restructured, and possibly used as a water storage facility for early medieval Odessos.

In her words, the newly excavated site is not very big but is extremely rich in terms of archaeological finds and information that can be derived from them.

The material and artifacts confirm that the newly discovered Early Byzantine thermae in the Black Sea city of Varna was in used in the 5^th and 6^th century AD.

A total of more than 200 coins have been discovered in the two rooms of thermae, which are found to have had hypocausts, i.e. underfloor heating.

The building of the previously known Late Roman / Early Byzantine themae in downtown Varna used to be very impressive judging from its rich decoration, including floor mosaics, marble fragments, and luxury plasters in different colors.

While the current excavations there are being wrapped up, Mircheva says a contract has been signed for the excavation of the adjacent property where the rest of the 5^th century AD pubic baths is located.

Archaeologist Elina Mircheva (above) and her colleague and lead archaeologist are seen showing the newly discovered 5th century AD structures. Photos: BTA

In the spring of 2019, archaeologists discovered for the first time one of the fortress gates of the Ancient Thracian, Greek, and Roman city of Odessos (Odessus), namely, its southwestern gate, in Varna, the largest modern-day city on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast.

The begging of Varna‘s history dates back to the dawn of human civilization, the Varna Chalcolithic Necropolis known for containing the world’s oldest gold treasure dating back to the 5th millenium BC, the Varna Gold Treasure).

Ancient Odessos known as Odessus in Roman times, the precursor of the Bulgarian Black Sea city of Varna, was founded by Miletian Greek colonists at the end of 7th century BC within an earlier Ancient Thracian settlement. Odessos (Odessus) became part of the Roman Empire (late the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire) in 15 AD. It was called Varna by the Ancient Bulgars after the First Bulgarian Empire conquered it in the late 7^th century AD.

In 2017, the accidental discovery of an Early Byzantine U-shaped fortress tower from Odessos confirmed data about the existence of Quaestura Exercitus, a peculiar administrative district in 6^th century AD Byzantium (i.e. the Eastern Roman Empire), under Emperor Justinian I the Great, uniting much of today’s Northern Bulgaria with Cyprus, parts of Anatolia, and the Cyclades.

Learn more about ancient Odessos (Odessus), today’s Varna, and about its Large Roman Thermae and Small Roman Thermae in the Background Infonotes below!

A map showing the known information about the fortress walls of ancient Odessos and modern-day Varna. The known section of the earliest fortress wall (dating back to the Thracian settlement and the Greek colony) is shown in blue. The known sections from the wall built by Roman Emperor Tiberius is shown in purple. The Late Antiquity / Late Roman / Early Byzantine fortress wall is shown in brown. The substantially smaller fortress from Middle Ages, the time of the medieval Bulgarian Empire, is shown in green. The 18th – 19th century Ottoman fortification is shown in red. The location of the newly discovered Southwestern Gate on the Late Antiquity wall (brown) is circled in red. Map: Sveti Mesta

Background Infonotes:

The dawn of Varna‘s history dates back to the dawn of human civilization, the Varna Chalcolithic Necropolis being especially well known with the discovery of the world’s oldest find of gold artifacts which date back to the 5th millenium BC (the Varna Gold Treasure).

Ancient Odessos (known as Odessus in Roman times) is considered the precursor of the Bulgarian Black Sea city of Varna. It was founded by Miletian Greek colonists at the end of 7th century BC, the earliest Greek archaeological material dating back to 600-575 BC.

However, the Greek colony was established within an earlier Ancient Thracian settlement, and the name Odessos had existed before the arrival of the Miletian Greeks and might have been of Carian origin. Odessos as the Roman city of Odessus became part of the Roman Empire in 15 AD when it was incorporated in the Roman province Moesia.

Roman Odessos is especially known today for its well preserved public baths, or thermae, the largest Roman single structure remains in Bulgaria, and the fourth largest Roman public baths known in Europe.

The First Bulgarian Empire (680-1018 AD) conquered Odessos (Varna) from Rome‘s successor, the Eastern Roman Empire, or Byzantium, in the late 7th century.

It is even believed that the peace treaty in which the Byzantine Empire recognized the ceding of its northern territories along the Danube to Bulgaria was signed in Odessos. The wall (rampart) that the first ruler of Danube Bulgaria, Khan (or kanas) Asparuh built at the time as a defense against future Byzantine incursions is still standing.

Numerous Ancient Bulgar settlements around Varna have been excavated, and the First Bulgarian Empire had its first two capitals Pliska (681-893 AD) and Veliki (Great) Preslav (893-970 AD) just 70-80 km to the west of Varna. It is suggested that the name of Varna itself is of Bulgar origin. In the Middle Ages, as a coastal city, Varna changed hands between Bulgaria and Byzantium several times. It was reconquered for the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1396 AD) by Tsar Kaloyan (r. 1197-1207 AD) in 1201 AD.

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The Large (North) Ancient Roman Thermae in Bulgaria’s Black Sea city of Varna are the ruins of the first and larger public baths that functioned in the Ancient Roman city of Odessus (known as Odessos in Thracian and Greek times). They are located in the southeastern part of today’s Varna. With a total of area of 7000 square meters, and a height of 20-22 meters, the thermae in Varna are the largest public building from the Antiquity period unearthed in Bulgaria.

The Roman Thermae in Bulgaria’s Varna are ranked as the fourth largest preserved Roman thermae in Europe after the Baths of Caracalla and Baths of Diocletian in the imperial capital Rome and the baths of Trier, and as the largest in the Balkans. They were built in the 2^nd century AD, after the previously Ancient Thracian town and then Greek colony of Odessos was made part of the Roman province of Moesia in 15 AD, and were in use for about 100 years. Coins of Roman Emperor Septimius Severus (r. 193–211) have been found among their ruins. The Thermae featured facilities such as an apodyterium (changing room), a frigidarium (cold pool), a tepidarium (warm pool), and a caldarium (hot pool) as well as a palaestra (a space with social and athletic functions). They were heated with a hypocaust, an underfloor heating system of pipes.

The Roman Thermae in Varna were first seen an archaeological site by Austro-Hungarian researcher E. Kalinka in 1906, and were later excavated by Czech-Bulgarian brothers Karel and Hermann Skorpil, who are known as the founders of Bulgarian archaeology. They were also excavated in 1959-1971 by a team led by Bulgarian archaeologist M. Mirchev. In 2013, Varna Municipality allocated BGN 150,000 (app. EUR 75,000) for the rehabilitation of the Large Roman Thermae.

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The Small (South) Ancient Roman Thermae in Bulgaria’s Black Sea city of Varna are the ruins of the later and smaller public baths that functioned in the Ancient Roman city of Odessus (known as Odessos in Thracian and Greek times). They are located in the southeastern part of today’s Varna but further south than the Large Roman Thermae. They were built in the 5th-6th century AD as the city of Odessus experienced a decline (at the time the entire Roman Empire was in decline), after the Large Thermae were abandoned and partly destroyed in the 3rd-4th century AD.

The Small Roman Thermae were erected on top of an Ancient Thracian temple or sanctuary that honored Ancient Greek god Apollo as well as a female deity that the Varna achaeologists at first believed was Ancient Thracian goddess Bendis but have recently changed their interpretation to believe that it was in fact Ancient Greek goddess Aphrodite that the Thracian had worshipped. In 2013, Varna Municipality allocated BGN 130,000 (app. EUR 65,000) for the rehabilitation of the Small Roman Thermae.

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The post 5th Century AD Byzantine Thermae (Public Baths) Discovered in Downtown of Bulgarian Black Sea City Varna appeared first on Archaeology in Bulgaria. and Beyond.

Strandzha Mountain has an image of a mystical place in Bulgaria because of its nature, proximity to the Black Sea, and historical, archaeological, and cultural heritage. Photo: Wikipedia

It would be best not to turn the caves in the Strandzha Mountain in Southeast Bulgaria into tourist destinations because they are homes of numerous endangered biological species and a rich archaeological heritage, according to a speleologist.

A total of 11 out of Bulgaria’s hundreds of caves have been declared tourist attractions, and none of those are in the Strandzha Mountain, Bulgarian speleologist Stoyan Yordanov has told Radio Focus.

Strandzha is a relatively small mountain in today’s Southeast Bulgaria and European Turkey, close to the Black Sea.

It has an area of about 10,000 square meters, of which 35% are in Bulgaria, and 65% in Turkey. Its highest peak is1,031 meters tall, and the highest one, which is in Bulgaria, is 705 meters tall.

In the past, all parts of the Strandzha Mountain used to be inhabited by Bulgarians. The Strandzha Natural Park established in 1995 is Bulgaria’s largest natural park with a total area of 1,100 square kilometers, or 1% of Bulgaria’s territory.

Strandzha has the image of a mystic mountain, and its Bulgarian part is home to communities practicing the world-famous folklore custom of Nestinarstvo, i.e. fire-dancing or fire-walking, which is included in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list.

Speleologist Stoyan Yordanov points out that humans are banned from entering some of the caves in Strandzha under Bulgaria’s Biodiversity Act.

The rest of the caves can be visited but it is recommended that potential visitors contact a speleology club for help in that regard, and make sure they have the proper physical training, equipment, and a guide.

Some of the caves in Strandzha contain dangerous gases such as carbon dioxide, the speleologist warns.

There are a total of 67 caves officially registered on the territory of the Strandzha Natural Park and several which have not been registered, and the existence of unknown or undiscovered ones cannot be ruled out.

Some of the caves in the Strandzha Mountain in Southeast Bulgaria contain red clay.

“Yellow and red soils are typical specific to jungles. Even though Strandzha is far from the equator, its vegetation resembles that of the tropics,” Yordanov notes.

He points out it is proven that part of the caves in the Strandzha Mountain used to be inhabited in ancient times.

Some have seen archaeological excavations. In the Bratanova Cave, for example, archaeologists have found an earthen pot from ca. 2,000 BC as well as coins of Macedon King Philip II and his son Alexander the Great.

Another cave which used to be inhabited by humans in ancient times is called “Kaleto” (a Turkish word meaning “fortress” often used to denote nameless dilapidated fortresses in the Bulgarian countryside) where archaeological research is ongoing.

The caves in the Strandzha Mountain contain a rich diversity of bat species – out of a total of 35 bat species in Europe, 33 live in Bulgaria, and 26 of those in the Strandzha Mountain.

The speleologist explains that the Strandzha Mountain did not experience the last Ice Age, unlike the higher Rila, Pirin, and Rhodope Mountains in Southwest Bulgaria, which allowed many plant and animal species to continue to thrive unaffected. Some unique plant species include the Strandzha elm and the Strandzha periwinkle.

The Strandzha Mountain in Southeast Bulgaria and European Turkey also boasts a diversity of mammal species and is the only part of Europe inhabited by the Caspian swamp turtle.

A recent report has revealed that many of the valuable caves in the Rusenski Lom Nature Park in Northeast Bulgaria have been badly damaged by human activity.

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Cape Chervenka (in the front) on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast harbors the ruins of the Early Byzantine city of Chrisosotira / Talaskara, and, as it turns out, traces from the very first Ancient Greek colonists on the Western Black Sea coast. Photo: National Museum of History

Archaeological layers with remains from the earliest Ancient Greek colonists, or settlers, on today’s Bulgarian Black Sea coast dating back to the Archaic period in the 7^th – 6^th century BC have been surprisingly found by archaeologists excavating an Early Byzantine Empire city near Bulgaria’s Chernomorets.

The discoveries have been made by a team led by archaeologists Prof. Ivan Hristov and Dr. Margarita Popova from the National Museum of History in Sofia.

The archaeological team had set off on their sixth annual expedition to study the Byzantine city of Chrisosotira located on a small Black Sea peninsula near Chernomorets, and existing in the early days of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire), from the 5^th until the 7^th century when it was destroyed by barbarian invasions.

The Late Antiquity and Early Byzantine fortress, Chrisosotira (“Golden Savior, Golden Christ”), also known as Talaskara, is located on Cape Chervenka, a small peninsula on Bulgaria’s southern Black Sea coast near the resort town of Chernomorets, and 2 km northwest of the resort town of Sozopol.

Not unlike other small peninsulas in the region, Cape Chervenka has a narrow neck leading to a wider cape.

The fortress walls of Talaskara / Chrisosotira were built as part of the large-scale fortress construction at the time of Byzantine Emperor Justinian I the Great (r. 527-565 AD).

In 2018, Hristov’s archaeological team found ample evidence that Chrisosotira / Talaskara on Cape Chervenka near Bulgaria’s Chernomorets was indeed burned down and destroyed by a barbarian invasion of Slavs and Avars in the 7th century AD.

During their 2019 digs in the Early Byzantine city of Chrisosotira / Talaskara, the researchers excavated four more residential buildings in its southern section. They have found Late Antiquity artifacts such as rare coins and pottery vessels.

It was beneath one of the Early Byzantine homes that the archaeologists unexpectedly came across an archaeological layer from the very beginning of the Ancient Greek colonization of the Western Black Sea coast, which is today in Bulgaria.

“The surprise for the [archaeological] team this year has been the newly discovered layer with material from the Archaic Era of Ancient Greece – the 7^th – 6^th century BC,” the National Museum of History in Sofia says.

“Beneath the floor level of one the richest Byzantine houses there have been found dozens of fragments of painted ceramic vessels, which were the work of the first Ancient Greek settlers in this part of the Black Sea,” it adds.

The Museum points out that the rare finds discovered in the Archaic Era layer in Chrysosotira near Bulgaria’s Chernomorets include also bronze “arrow coins” from the first settlers of the Ancient Greek colony of Apollonia Pontica – today’s Black Sea town of Sozopol in Southeast Bulgaria – as well as a bronze Ancient Greek arrow from the 7^th century BC.

“Bronze arrow coins are a type of pre-coin form [of exchange]. Before coin minting began, bronze arrows were used as the means of exchange in Apollonia and the vicinity,” Bulgaria’s National Museum of History explains.

“The discovery of arrow coins on the [Chrysosotira] peninsula is a prerequisite to look for a temple of some of the Ancient Greek deities such as god Apollo – because the arrow coins were also left as sacrificial gifts at the altars of the gods,” it elaborates.

In another recent case, 2,600-year-old arrow coins were discovered in the Black Sea town of Sozopol, ancient Apollonia Pontica, back in 2016.

The discovery of an Ancient Greek archaeological layer from the Archaic Period (7th – 6th century BC) has come as a surprise to the team excavating the Early Byzantine city near Bulgaria’s Chernomorets. Photos: National Museum of History

The Museum also cites experts in Antiquity ceramics as reminding that imported pottery from the eastern parts of Ancient Greece has also been discovered outside the urban core of Apollonia Pontica, today’s Sozopol, where it is found at its most diverse.

Similar Ancient Greek pottery finds have been discovered during underwater archaeology research south of the polis of Apollonia Pontica, in the mouth of the Ropotamo River, on Cape Urdoviza, today’s town of Kiten, and on Cape Atiya.

Eastern Ancient Greek pottery has also been discovered in the Gulf of Burgas in the Black Sea, during excavations in an area called Kostadin Cheshma, near the town of Debelt, Burgas District, in Southeast Bulgaria (which itself is the successor of the Ancient Roman city of Deultum and the medieval Bulgarian and Byzantine city of Debelt).

“There is almost no data about the distribution of Ionian pottery from the 7^th – 6^th century BC in the other Hellenic poleis along Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast. This circumstance has to do with both the condition of the exploration, and with the later dates of establishment of the other city-states,” explains the National Museum of History in Sofia.

It notes that there are published papers about two Ionian pottery fragments discovered in ancient Mesembria, today’s town of Nessebar, Apollonia Pontica’s rival in the Antiquity.

Some Ionian pottery has also been discovered in Odessos, today’s Black Sea city of Varna, which, just like Apollonia Pontica, was also a colony of the Ancient Greek city state of Miletus in Asia Minor. Unlike Apollonia, however, Odessos is situated in the northern part of Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast.

“The distribution of imported Eastern Ancient Greek pottery in the archaeological sites in the interior of Ancient Thrace is extremely rare,” Bulgaria’s National Museum of History points out.

“This type of Ancient Greek pottery is encountered mostly in areas located in close proximity to the Black Sea coast, or along the large rivers connecting Ancient Thrace with the region of Aegean Sea, such as Karnobat, Yambol, Stara Zagora, and Koprivlen,” it adds,

“The discoveries of Prof. Ivan Hristov’s team are shedding new lightf on the most ancient history of a multi-layered archaeological site where remains from the Classical Era of Ancient Greece and the Hellenistic Era have also been discovered,” the Museum concludes with respect to the 2019 excavations of the Early Byzantine city of Chrysosotira near Bulgaria’s Chernomorets.

The Museum points out that the latest traces of inhabitants on the Chrysosotira Peninsula date back to the 13^th – 14^th century when the area kept changing hands between the Second Bulgarian Empire and the Byzantine Empire.

The location of Cape Chervenka with the ruins of the Early Byzantine city of Chrysosotira / Talaskara in Southeast Bulgaria. Maps: Google Maps

Archaeologist Ivan Hristov specializes in the study of sites on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast. He recently published a book entitled “Mare Ponticum. Coastal Fortresses and Harbor Zones in the Province of Haemimontus, 5^th – 7^th Century AD”, which looks at the Haemimontus province of the Early Byzantine Empire in the Late Antiquity and early Middle Ages.

In August 2018, he discovered a sunken fortress from Ancient Thrace at Sveti Toma (St. Thomas) Island, off the coast of Primorsko.

North African amphorae (among other “exotic” artifacts) from the Early Byzantine period have been found before in Bulgaria’s coastal regions, including by Hristov’s team in the Talaskara / Chrisosotira Fortress back in 2015.

Last year, the National Museum of History in Sofia awarded the Bulgarian Navy for its permitting and assisting the exploration of numerous archaeological sites along Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast, such as Chrisosotira / Talaskara, which used to be or still are naval military bases.

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Relevant Books on Amazon.com:

Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire That Rescued Western Civilization

Bulgars: Webster’s Timeline History, 354 – 2007

A history of the first Bulgarian empire,

2: Byzantium, Pliska, and the Balkans (Millennium Studies)

Bulgaria History, Early Settlement and Empire: Pre-Bulgarian Civilizations, Communism, Society and Environment, Economy, Government and Politics

DK Eyewitness Travel Guide Bulgaria

Lonely Planet Romania & Bulgaria (Travel Guide)

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Background Infonotes:

The Late Antiquity and Early Byzantine fortress Talaskara on Cape Chervenka, also known as Chrisosotira (“Golden Savior, Golden Christ”) is located on a small peninsula on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast near the resort town of Chernomorets, and 2 km northwest of the resort town of Sozopol.

Not unlike the peninsula of the Old Town of Nessebar, another Black Sea resort town, Cape Chervenka has a narrow neck leading to a wider cape with an area of 68 decares (app. 17 acres), which was surrounded with a robust fortress wall with large fortress towers every 30 meters.

The fortress wall of the Byzantine fortress Talaskara on Cape Chervenka (Chrisosotira) is from the 6^th century, and was built as part of the large-scale fortress construction at the time of Byzantine Emperor Justinian I the Great (r. 527-565 AD).

For a long time, Cape Chervenka was a military base of the Bulgarian Navy, and Bulgarian archaeologists gained access to it only in 2014 when a team led by archaeologist Assoc. Prof. Ivan Hristov, Deputy Director of the Bulgarian National Museum of History, conducted drilling excavations with a special permit from Bulgaria’s Defense Ministry.

A large fortress tower with dimensions 5 by 6 meters unearthed by Ivan Hristov’s team in 2014 is taken to indicate that the fortified Byzantine settlement located on Cape Chervenka was a rich city.

The last time the fortress on Chervenka was used was during the Russian-Turkish War of 1828-1829 when the navy of the Russian Empire used it to set up a base where it accepted tens of thousands of Bulgarian refugees fleeing Ottoman Turkish atrocities who were then transported by sea to the region of Bessarabia (in today’s Moldova and Ukraine), and the Taurica (Crimean) Peninsula, and settled there.

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The post Traces of First Ancient Greek Colonists in 7th Century BC Found under Byzantine City at Bulgaria’s Chernomorets on Black Sea Coast appeared first on Archaeology in Bulgaria. and Beyond.

Two or three chainmail armors from the Late Antiquity previously unseen in Bulgaria have been discovered in the ancient and medieval city of Deultum close to the Black Sea coast. Photo: Desant

An unknown type of well-preserved Late Antiquity chainmail armors from the last years of the Roman Empire before its division or the early Eastern Roman Empire, i.e. Byzantium, have been discovered by archaeologists in the Ancient Roman colony Deultum near the town of Debelt, Burgas District, close to the Black Sea coast in Southeast Bulgaria.

No such chainmail armors have been discovered in Bulgaria so far, and should be deemed very rare and intriguing finds internationally as well, as the artifacts date back to the period of the 4^th – 6^th century AD, whose armors still need lots of research, according to archaeologists.

Deultum was a Roman colony, which according to Roman law signified a status equal to that of the city of Rome itself. In today’s Bulgaria, there are only three Roman cities which enjoyed this status – Deultum (Colonia Flavia Pacis Deultensium) near Burgas, Ratiaria (Colonia Ulpia Traiana Ratiaria) near Archar, Ulpia Oescus near Gigen.

The Ancient Roman city of Deultum (Colonia Flavia Pacis Deultensium) was built in the 1^st century AD near a previously existing Ancient Thracian settlement called Debelt or Develt. It was settled by Roman military veterans from the Augustus’ Eight Legion (Legio VIII Augusta) near the Mandra Lake (today the Mandra Water Reservoir) where it also had a port connecting it to the Black Sea.

The previously unknown Late Antiquity chainmail armors from the very end of the Roman Empire before its division or the early years of the Eastern Roman Empire have been discovered shortly before the end of the 2019 archaeological season, the Desant newspaper and Skat TV report, citing Krasimira Kostova, Director of the Deultum – Debelt Archaeological Preserve.

The chainmail armors have been found inside the Deultum fortress, close to its northern fortress wall.

Over 6,000 metal slabs from the two or three chain armors have been found in Deultum. Photo: Desant

Well-preserved sleeves from the Late Antiquity and/or Early Byzantine chainmail armors discovered in the ancient city of Deultum in Southeast Bulgaria. Photos: TV grabs from Skat TV

The preserved chainmail elements discovered in the Ancient Roman city of Deultum are from two or possibly even three armors of unique craftsmanship.

The chainmail armors’ rings are in fact rectangular slabs made of wrought iron which were all attached to a leather piece of clothing underneath.

“These seemingly unsightly elements are proving to be extremely interesting. We are yet to search for parallels to the chainmail armors from Deultum. But for the time being, we don’t know of any such ones that may have been discovered, [at least] in Bulgaria,” Kostova explains.

“It is fully possible that they might end up being classified as “Late Antiquity” (i.e. Late Roman), rather than “Early Byzantine”. We now face the task of clarifying their dating, and figuring out whether these are two or three chainmail armors,” she adds.

The Director of the Deultum – Debelt Archaeological Preserve in Southeast Bulgaria also reveals that the newly discovered chainmail armor fragments will be referred for restoration to an expert in the city of Yambol.

If he does decide to take up the job, he will probably spend the next 3 or 4 years piecing them together since the small chainmail slabs, which have been discovered, are over 6,000.

“This requires an incredible amount of work because every single slab has to be extracted, any corrosion needs to be cleaned up, and then the slab needs to be restored and placed on leather, the way it used to be,” Kostova points out.

“These chainmail armors were vertically leaned against the fortress wall, and when the wall collapsed, they were crushed down and into each other. They were still kept together by the leather underneath the small metal slabs, and that’s has resulted in the specific relief which can be seen in their sleeves,” the archaeologist reveals further.

Part of the discovered chainmail slabs show traces of wood residue leading to the hypothesis that they had been stored in wooden chests.

The metal slabs of the newly found chainmail armors were attached to a layer of leather underneath. Photos: TV grabs from Skat TV

The 2019 excavations in the Ancient Roman, and later Early Byzantine, and medieval Bulgarian fortress of Deultum, during which the unique chainmail armors have been found, also exposed the northeastern tower of its main fortification, and the postern (secondary gate) leading up to it.

The archaeologists have also revealed a large wall east of the fortress wall which might prove out to have been a temple.

Following the horrific invasions of Attila’s Huns in the 5^th century, the fortress walls of Deultum, then in the early Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire were strengthened.

The newly exposed northeastern corner tower was originally built in the 4^th century AD, reinforced in the 5^th century, and destroyed in the 6^th century together with the entire Late Roman Era fortress as a result of the barbarian invasions of Avars and Slavs.

“We have found tips from arrows, and these are arrows of the attacks in this Avar – Slav invasion,” Assoc. Prof. Lyudmil Vagalinski, lead archaeologist of the Deultum excavations and former Director of the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia, has told the Bulgarian National Radio in an earlier interview, not long after the start of the 2019 digs in early October.

“What has really impressed us are the numerous fragments from chainmail armors. They are from the time of an earlier fire in fortress when it actually managed to withstand [the barbarian attack] but was still damaged. We are gathering them very carefully. They are very well-preserved, with charred pieces of leather. I hope we will be able to study them thoroughly in order to learn more,” Vagalinski points out.

Deultum – Debelt Archaeological Preserve Director Krasimira Kostova presenting the latest discoveries. Photos: Desant

The excavated section of Deultum’s northern fortress wall. Photo: Deultum – Debelt Archaeological Preserve

A view of excavated ruins in Deultum. Photo: Deutum – Debelt Archaeological Preserve Facebook Page

He also notes that the excavations in Deultum so far have provided lots of information about the armaments of the Early Byzantine and Late Antiquity period, the 5^th – 6^th century AD, which are not that well researched internationally. In his words, much of the knowledge about them has been based on images and reliefs.

During the excavations of the northeastern corner tower of the ancient city of Deultum, his team has also come across bronze coins, pottery, bronze fibulas, and animal bones of large guard dogs. Bones of the same dog breed have also been found in the other fortress towers excavated so far.

According to Vagalinski, it is unique that each of the three neighboring fortress towers excavated so far in the northern part of Deultum is different even though they were constructed at the same time.

In his words, in building them, the designers of the fortification took into account the likely direction of attacks, and also demonstrated a large amount of creativity, especially with respect to the middle tower, which is the largest of them, and said to be the only one of its kind in the world.

In the Late Antiquity, the Deultum – Debelt Fortress was supported by the central authority of the (Eastern) Roman Empire helped fortify the city additionally, thus helping it to survive the barbarian invasions until the 6^th century AD.

“The classification of this fortress wall is very complicated. Because of geophysical data, I had presumed that it is from the earlier period, the 2^nd – 3^rd century, and was utilized by the Late Antiquity fortifications but it has turned out that these walls were also constructed in the 4^th century, during the Late Antiquity,” Vagalinski says.

“There are many questions left to be answered. I assume they were part of the lower, additional fortress wall which was built before the main wall in order to protect it better from enemy attacks. But I haven’t seen such a complex fortification – it is also segmented into smaller walls,” he adds.

“This northern section of Deultum together with its adjacent emperor temple, and a very massive urban villa (villa urbana) built in the northern part right behind the fortress wall, and a thermae complex, probably for the local governors or the emperors when they stayed in the city, will turn into the focus of this northern section of Deultum,” Vagalinski concludes.

Back in 2016, the archaeological team excavating the Roman colony of Deultum near Bulgaria’s Southern Black Sea coast discovered the legs of a mounted bronze statue in the ancient city’s Imperial Cult temple.

Also in 2016, the part of the Deultum – Debelt Archaeological Preserve accessible to tourists was fully renovated.

Learn more about Deultum in the Background Infonotes below!

Deultum was the earliest out of a total of three colonies of Ancient Rome in today’s Bulgaria, and a major border area city and fortress between the Bulgarian and the Byzantine Empires in the Middle Ages. Map: Google Maps

Background Infonotes:

The ruins of the Ancient Thracian settlement of Debelt (Develt) and the Ancient Roman city of Deultum (Colonia Flavia Pacis Deultensium), which was also a medieval Byzantine and Bulgarian fortress, are located near today’s town of Debelt, Sredets Municipality, Burgas District (17 km east of the city of Burgas), near the Black Sea coast of Southeast Bulgaria.

The Roman city of Deultum itself was founded during the reign of Roman Emperor Vespasian (r. 69-79 AD) on the northern bank of the Sredetska River, near the Mandra Lake (today the Mandra Water Reservoir) where it also had a port connecting it to the Black Sea. Deultum was a Roman colony, which according to Roman law signified a status equal to that of Rome itself.

In today’s Bulgaria, there are only three Roman cities which enjoyed this status – Deultum (Colonia Flavia Pacis Deultensium) near Burgas, Ratiaria (Colonia Ulpia Traiana Ratiaria) near Archar, Ulpia Oescus near Gigen. Deultum was settled by Roman military veterans from the Augustus’ Eight Legion (Legio VIII Augusta).

On the 30^th anniversary since the founding of the Roman colony Deultum, then Roman Emperor Trajan (r. 98-117 AD) minted a special emission of bronze coins. There are indications that at some point between the 130s and the 150s Deultum was seriously damaged by a barbarian invasion. The Roman city was further strengthened during the reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius (r. 161-180 AD); its limits were marked by inscriptions at two points – in today’s southern suburbs of Burgas, and at the ancient fortress in the town of Golyamo Bukovo.

Deultum thrived during the reign of the Severan Dynasty (r. 193-235 AD), at the end of the 2^nd and the beginning of the 3^rd century AD, when it had an area of about 250 decares (app. 62 acres), and a sophisticated urban infrastructure. Its residents had temples of ancient god of medicine Asclepius and goddess Cybele, and also worshiped the Thracian Horseman, also known as god Heros, and Hercules (Heracles).

In the second half of the 3^rd century AD, Deultum was ransacked by the Goths; however, it was restored shortly after that. The city’s thermae (public baths) were re-built with a complex water supply and sewerage system, and a hypocaust (underfloor heating). It is possible that during a visit to Deultum in November 296 AD Roman Emperor Diocletian also visited the thermae.

In the 4^th century, the city was known again with its Thracian name, Develt, and it was reinforced because of its new strategic role of supplying and protecting the new capital of the Roman Empire, Constantinople (as of 330 AD). In the 370s, there was a major battle near Develt between the Roman forces and the Goths who prevailed and burned down the city. It was restored once again but on a smaller area. In the 5^th century, Develt was the center of a bishopric.

In the second half of the 6^th century, the city was affected by the barbarian invasions of the Slavs and Avars. Debelt (Develt) was conquered from Byzantium for the First Bulgarian Empire (632/680-1018 AD) by the Bulgarian Khan (or Kanas) Krum (r. 803-814 AD) in 812 AD who exiled the city’s population in the Bulgarian territories north of the Danube, and settled it with Bulgarians.

Thus, during the Middle Ages, Debelt was a major strategic fortress in the frontier region between Bulgaria and Byzantium. Debelt is also the starting area of the Erkesiya, a huge earthen wall (rampart) with a moat built by the Ancient Bulgars in the 8^th century, as early as the reign of Khan Tervel (700-721 AD), after in 705 AD the Byzantine Empire ceded to Bulgaria the Zagore Region, which covers much of today’s Southeast Bulgaria.

The Erkesiya Wall spanned 142 kilometers going all the way from the lakes around the city of Burgas in the east to the Sakar Mountain in the west. The Erkesiya Wall was made the official border between the First Bulgarian Empire and Byzantium in a peace treaty signed in 815 AD by the Bulgarian Khan Omurtag (r. 814-831 AD) and the Byzantine Emperor Leo V the Armenian (r. 813-820 AD), and, in addition to serving a defense purpose for Bulgaria, it became a major customs facility facilitating the trade relations between the two empires all the way to the 14^th century.

By the end of the 14^th century AD, Debelt waned, when the Ottoman Turks conquered the Second Bulgarian Empire, and the name of the city was no longer mentioned in historical sources after that period.

The Ancient Thracian, Roman, Byzantine, and Bulgarian archaeological city of Debelt (Develt) / Deultum was first explored and described at the end of the 19^th century by Czech-Bulgarian historian Konstantin Jirecek and Czech-Bulgarian archaeologists Karel and Hermann Skorpil. It was further explored in the first half the 20^th century but major archaeological excavations near Debelt started in the 1980s because of the construction of a large metallurgical factory there.

The excavations were led by late archaeologist Stefan Damyanov from the National Museum of History in Sofia, and Petar Balabanov from the Burgas Regional Museum of History. Later, the excavations were led by Tsonya Drazheva from the Burgas Museum, and then by Lyudmil Vagalinski from the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia. Debelt – Deultum was declared an archaeological monument in 1965, and in 1988, the Bulgarian authorities set up the Debelt – Deultum Archaeological Preserve which covers an area of about 3 square km, and features over 25 archaeological sites dating back to different time periods – from the prehistory to the Late Middle Ages.

Those include a medieval fortress called Malko Gradishte (“Small Fortress”) which existed between the 4^th and the 7^th century AD as an Early Byzantine fortification, and in the 12^th-14^th century AD, as a fortress in the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1396 AD); and a 9^th century church in an area called Kostadin Cheshma where the archaeologists found a total of 34 Christian funerals, and a total of 64 lead seals (most of them belonging to Byzantine dignitaries from the Iconoclastic Period (726-843 AD)) including three seals of the Bulgarian Knyaz Boris I Michael (r. 852-889; 893 AD) with the images of Jesus Christ and the Mother of God (Virgin Mary). Since Knyaz Boris I was the ruler who made Christianity the official religion of Bulgaria, scholars have hypothesized that Debelt is where he might have been baptized by the Byzantine clergy.

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The disc-shaped copper ingots found in a Late Bronze Age shipwreck are seen here, with a photo of Bulgaria’s Maslen Nos cape in the background. Photo: Burgas Regional Museum of History

A set of ancient copper ingots shaped as discs have been found in a shipwreck near a Black Sea cape in Southeast Bulgaria shedding light on the maritime trade of the Ancient Thracians during the Late Bronze Age (second half of the 2^nd millennium BC) as they are analogous to copper ingots found in two famous ancient shipwrecks on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, at Gelidonya and Uluburun.

The disc-like Late Bronze Age copper ingots in question have been discovered inside a Late Bronze Age shipwreck near Bulgaria’s Maslen Nos, i.e. “Oily Cape”, alongside other artifacts.

Their discovery has been announced the Regional Museum of History in the Black Sea city of Burgas in a release on a public lecture on it given by archaeologist Miroslav Klasnakov.

The Late Bronze Age copper ingots were part of the load carried by an ancient ship whose wreck has been found near Bulgaria’s Maslen Nos cape, close to the town of Primorsko, Burgas District.

The ancient copper ingots in question differ from Bronze Age copper ingots discovered in Bulgaria’s interior, and, instead, are similar to copper ingots discovered in far more famous shipwrecks on the coast of Southern Anatolia, Turkey, at the Gelidonya Cape and the Uluburun Cape.

A map showing the locations of the Uluburun and Gelidonya shipwrecks in Turkey and the Maslen Nos shipwreck in Bulgaria – disc-shaped Late Bronze Age copper ingots have been discovered at all three places. Map: BAS Library

The Gelidonya shipwreck is that of a Late Bronze Age (from ca. 1,200 BC) ship from Mycenae.

It was located at a depth of 27 meters (89 feet) in 1954, and started to be excavated in 1960. In addition to disc-shaped copper ingots, the Mycenaean shipwreck at Turkey’s Gelidonya Cape also contained tin ingots, merchant weights, and Mycenaean pottery.

The Uluburun Cape shipwreck, also on Turkey’s southern, Mediterranean coast, also dates back to the Late Bronze Age, more specifically, the 14^th century BC.

It was discovered in 1982 of between 8 and 17 meters (26 – 56 feet), and was explored between 1984 and 1994.

The disc-like copper ingots found in the Late Bronze Age shipwreck at Bulgaria’s Maslen Nos cape. Photo: Burgas Regional Museum of History

The discovery and characteristics of the disc-like Late Bronze Age copper ingots found on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast at Maslen Nos was presented in Bulgaria’s Burgas by archaeologist Miroslav Klasnakov in February 2020.

“Analogous to similar finds from explored shipwrecks at the capes of Gelidonya and Uluburun in Turkey, the “copper cakes” from the Bulgarian Black Sea coast are also dated to the Late Bronze Age,” Klasnakov was cited as saying.

“Unlike the ingots [of the same period], which are shaped like a stretched-out ox skin, found in [the interior] of today’s Bulgaria, however, relatively far to the west of the sea coast, these ones [from Maslen Nos] have a disc-like shape, and are found only beneath water,” the archaeologist explains.

He points out that the ancient copper ingots found at Maslen Nos convey information about the maritime trade contacts between the Ancient Thracian tribes, which inhabited the region of the Strandzha Mountain in today’s Southeast Bulgaria and Northeast European Turkey.

At the same time, however, the copper ingots also offer insights into the mining of metals and metallurgy in the Strandzha Mountain during the Late Bronze Age.

5 Incredible Underwater Discoveries by Black Sea MAP in Bulgaria’s Zone: From Ancient Sunken Ships to the Biblical Deluge

In 2016 – 2018, the Black Sea Maritime Archaeology Project (Black Sea M.A.P.) led to numerous amazing underwater discoveries by exploring dozens of well-preserved ancient and medieval sunken ships in Bulgaria’s Black Sea zone.

Learn more about the Maslen Nos (“Oily Cape”) on the Black Sea coast of Southeast Bulgaria in the Background Infonotes below!

The Maslen Nos cape is actually the eastern-most ridge of the Strandzha Mountain protruding into the Black Sea. Photos: Primorsko Municipality

The tip of the Maslen Nos cape. Photo: Wikipedia

Background Infonotes:

Maslen Nos (meaning “Oily Cape”) is small peninsula on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast, near the town of Primorsko, Burgas District.

It is about 2 kilometers long. It is part of the easternmost ridge of the Strandzha Mountain, and is surrounded by large sandy beaches.

The Maslen Nos cape boasts a very rich archaeological heritage, with structures from the time of the Antiquity, Late Antiquity, and Middle Ages.

It is close to the mouth of the Ropotamo River, the Ancient Thracian city of Ranuli, and the ancient megalithic shrine of Beglik Tash.

The tip of the Maslen Nos cape harbors the ruins of the Late Antiquity and early medieval city of Chersonesus (not to be confused with the ancient city of Chersonesus on the Crimean (Taurica) Peninsula or other geographic locations bearing the same name), also known as the Terra Fortress. In the 13^th – 14^th century, it was the site of a port known as Siva.

Ivan Dikov is the author of Plunder Paradise: How Brutal Treasure Hunters Are Obliterating World History and Archaeology in Post-Communist Bulgaria and Ugly Bargain: How the European Union and Bulgaria’s Post-Communist Oligarchy Fit Together, among other books.

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The new-born white Bactrian camel baby boy, the first of his species to have ever been born in the zoo in Bulgaria’s Black Sea city of Varna. Photo: Varna Mayor’s Facebook page

A white two-humped baby camel, i.e. of the Bactrian camel species, has been born for the first time in the zoo in the Black Sea city of Varna in Eastern Bulgaria.

The baby camel is male, and the Varna Zoo is yet to pick his name as well as well as symbolic adopter, Varna Mayor Ivan Portnih announced on his Facebook page.

“Congratulations to the zoo team who are putting a lot of efforts into taking care of the white camel baby and his parents. May he live long and be healthy so he can cheer Varna’s children,” the mayor wrote.

The parents of Bactrian camel baby boy were bought by the Varna Zoo from Slovakia. The mother, Eva, is 10 years old, and the father, Lemi, is six.

The new-born white camel baby boy of the Varna Zoo is yet to be named. Photos: Varna Mayor’s Facebook page

The white two-humped camel baby was born on April 23, 2020, after a 13-month pregnancy.

In recent weeks, the Varna Zoo, which is located in Varna’s beautiful Sea Garden park, saw the hatching of black swans and the birth of two baby mouflons (wild sheep), one black and one brown.

“We have completely changed the color now [with the baby camel’s birth] – we’ve gone from black swans and a black mouflon to a while baby camel,” Varna Zoo Director Ivanka Stoyanova has told the Bulgarian National Radio.

“This is very rare. Presently, the baby camel is feeling very well. There is no need for us to go in the enclosure and bother the family,” she adds.

The Varna Zoo plans to broadcast a live stream about the life of its Bactrian camel family on its Facebook page on Saturday, May 2.

The white came baby with his mother, 10-year-old Eva. Photo: Varna Mayor’s Facebook page

The camel baby boy with his parents, mother Eva (right), and father, Lami, 6 (left). Photo: Varna Mayor’s Facebook page

Recent archaeological discoveries of animal bones indicate that camels were known in today’s Bulgaria since the time of the Roman Empire as well as during the period of the medieval Bulgarian Empire and medieval Byzantium (i.e. the Eastern Roman Empire).

In 2019, camel bones, albeit from a dromedary, i.e. one-humped camel also known as Somali camel or Arabian camel, were discovered in the Rusocastro Fortress in Southeast Bulgaria.

Camel remains from the Middle Ages have also been found in the Tuida Fortress in today’s city of Sliven, also in Southeast Bulgaria.

Camel remains from the Roman Era and the Late Antiquity have been found in Bulgaria in two locations: the Ancient Thracian and Roman city of Kabyle near Yambol, also in Southeast Bulgaria, and the large Roman city of Nicopolis ad Istrum near today’s Veliko Tarnovo in Central North Bulgaria.

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The newly discovered Roman gold earring from Deultum (left) is similar or the same as women’s earrings depicted in the Fayum mummy portrats from Roman Egypt (right, and also see below). Photos: Deultum – Debelt Archaeological Preserve

An actual ancient gold earring which can be seen depicted in some of the so called Fayum Mummy Portraits from Roman Egypt has been discovered in Southeast Bulgaria by archaeologists excavating the Ancient Roman colony Deultum near the town of Debelt, Burgas District, close to the Black Sea coast.

Fayum mummy portraits are portraits on wooden boards which were attached to the mummies of upper class residents buried in Egypt during the Roman Era, in the 1^st century BC – 3^rd AD.

Such mummy portraits have been discovered throughout Egypt but most famously in the Fayum Basin, in Hawara and the Roman city of Antinoopolis from the time of Emperor Hadrian (r. 117 – 138). The term “Fayum mummy portraits” is used both as a geographic and stylistic description.

The Roman gold earring discovered in the city of Deultum in Southeast Bulgaria has been found to appear exactly the same as earrings of women depicted in some of the Fayum mummy portraits. Based on that similarity, the earring is dated by the Bulgarian researchers to the 2^nd century AD.

The gold earring found in the Roman city of Deultum – Debelt in Southeast Bulgaria appears to be the same as the earrings worn by the woman depicted in this Fayum mummy portrait. Photos: Deultum – Debelt Archaeological Preserve

The Fayum mummy portrait gold earring found not in Roman Egypt but in the Roman colony of Deultum in Southeast Bulgaria. Photo: Deultum – Debelt Archaeological Preserve

Another Fayum mummy portrait from Roman Egypt showing a noble woman wearing exactly the same earrings as the one found in Deultum. Photo: Deultum – Debelt Archaeological Preserve

The present archaeological excavations in the Deultum – Debelt Archaeological Preserve began on October 1, 2020; the Fayum mummy portrait gold earring was discovered two days later.

The Roman gold earring was found in the joint between tiles in one of the rooms in the ruins of the thermae (public baths) of Deultum, beneath an embankment, informs Krasimira Kostova, head of the Deultum – Debelt Archaeological Preserve, as cited by the Bulgarian National Radio.

“The gold earrings of a noble lady depicted in one of the Fayum Portraits are exactly the same as the earring that we have discovered here in Deultum,” the archaeologist says.

She points out that the thermae of Deultum were destroyed in 357 – 358 AD during a major earthquake.

“The gold earring probably was lost as it fell between the tiles, and when the thermae were destroyed by the earthquake, it remained there. Subsequently, the site was leveled with embankments, which is how it remained there. Because the spot of the thermae remained inhabited after that,” Kostova explains.

“This jewel is extremely sophisticated, it is very interested. We found it has parallels to one of the Fayum mummy portraits, which has led us to date it to the 2^nd century AD,” she adds.

“We are construing the discovery of the gold earring like the earrings depicted in that Fayum mummy portrait as evidence that the female inhabitants of the Roman colony of Deultum were following the fashion trends in the Roman Empire, and were up to date with fashion,” the archaeologist emphasizes.

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The Fayum mummy portrait earring from Southeast Bulgaria is a fine example of Roman Era craftsmanship. Photos: Deultum – Debelt Archaeological Preserve

The Fayum portrait gold earring from Deultum – Debelt is fully intact save for a slight bent in its upper part.

It has a cassette filled with white glass with a slight yellowish nuance; below it comes a filigree holder with three pendants, each of which ends with a white glass ball. The patina on the three balls gives them the appearance of pearls.

In addition to the gold earring similar to those in one of the Fayum mummy portraits, the archaeologists excavating the ruins of the Roman city of Deultum have already discovered a large number of bronze coins.

Their digs are now focused on exposing more from the ruins of the thermae (public baths) of the Roman colony.

The later homes, which were built on top of the ruins of the Roman thermae in Deulum, were researched during last year’s archaeological season, with the current excavations now targeting the layers beneath.

Once it is fully studied, the gold earring similar to the ones seen a Fayum mummy portrait from Roman Egypt is going to be put on display at the museum of the Deultum – Debelt Archaeological Preserve.

Learn more about Deultum in the Background Infonotes below!

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Also check this exciting discovery from Deultum – Debelt from last year:

Unknown Chainmail Armors Discovered in Roman Colony Deultum near Bulgaria’s Black Sea Coast

Unknown Chainmail Armors Discovered in Roman Colony Deultum near Bulgaria’s Black Sea Coast

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Ivan Dikov, the founder of ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com, is the author of the book Plunder Paradise: How Brutal Treasure Hunters Are Obliterating World History and Archaeology in Post-Communist Bulgaria, among other books.

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Background Infonotes:

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The post Gold Earring from Egypt’s Fayum Mummy Portraits Discovered in Roman City Deultum in Southeast Bulgaria appeared first on Archaeology in Bulgaria. and Beyond.

The first ever archaeological excavations on St. Petar / St. Peter Island near Bulgaria’s Sozopol exposed what appears to have been an Ancient Greek shrine in the 5th century BC. Photo: Burgas Regional Museum of History

An Antiquity shrine from the 5^th century BC, the time of the Ancient Greek colonization of Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast, has been discovered during the first ever archaeological excavations on the tiny St. Petar / St. Peter Island off the coast of Sozopol, right next to the St. Ivan / St. John Island famous for the discovery of relics of St. John the Baptist.

The discovery has been announced by the Regional Museum of History in the Black Sea city of Burgas.

The St. Ivan (“St. John”) Island is located about 900 meters away from the closest point on the Bulgarian mainland, the Stolets Peninsula (Cape Stolets, or Scamnia) in the town of Sozopol. The St. Peter Island, which is really small, is roughly the same distance from the coast, and only 50 meters away from the St. Ivan Island.

The town of Sozopol itself is the modern-day successor of ancient Apollonia Pontica (Sozopolis), an Ancient Greek colony dating back to the 6^th century BC, on the western Black Sea coast which was inhabited by Ancient Thracians.

The St. Ivan Island is the largest from Bulgaria’s several small islands in the Black Sea. It is best known for the discovery of the relics of St. John the Baptist in 2010, with the excavations there yielding new finds such as the 2015 discovery of a tomb possibly containing the bones of the monastery founder, a Syrian monk who brought the relics.

The St. Peter Island next to it, however, had never been researched by archaeologists before the fall of 2020, the Burgas History Museum says.

It points out that the St. Peter Island near the St. Ivan Island and Sozopol has a maximum altitude of 9 meters above sea level. Its territory is only 15 decares (0.015 square kilometers or 3.7 acres).

The St. Petar / St. Peter Island (front) and the St. Ivan / St. John Island (back) near Sozopol on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast. Photo: Burgas Regional Museum of History

An aerial view of the St. Petar / St. Peter Island off Sozopol’s coast. Photo: Burgas Regional Museum of History

“It is hypothesized that the St. Peter Island used to be part of the St. Ivan Island, and that it got separated from it due to the rising sea levels and the ensuing geological processes over the past two millennia. The St. Peter Island is not mentioned in historical sources predating the second half of the 19^th century,” the Burgas Museum states.

It also explains there have been presumptions that the St. Peter Island used to harbor an ancient church or monastery named after St. Peter.

It quotes Greek historian Lambros Kamberidis as hypothesizing that must have been the case considering that the St. Ivan Island had an early Christian monastery named after St Ivan, i.e. St. John the Baptist. The same was true of the St. Kiril (St. Cyricus), also known as the Sts. Quriaqos and Julietta Island), which is today a peninsula as it was connected with the mainland.

The late long-time director of the Burgas Regional Museum of History Tsonya Drazheva also mentioned the existence of chapel foundations on the St. Peter Island.

At the same time, there have been no data about accidental discoveries of archaeological artifacts from the St. Peter Island near Bulgaria’s Sozopol.

The only find to have been associated with the island has been a stone stock found south of it by divers who donated it to the National Museum of History in Sofia.

Thus, the first ever archaeological excavations on the St. Peter Island were carried out between September 28 and October 8, 2020, the Burgas Museum has announced.

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They included drills on an area of 66 square meters, which resulted in the discovery of two structures in the eastern section of the surveyed area: two low mounds of soil brought from a different location, which were covered up with small stones.

Inside the mounds, the archaeologists have found fragments from pottery vessels such as amphorae, bowls, thick kitchen vessels, and ceramic vessels covered with red polish and black glaze.

A remarkable artifact found in the mounds is the bronze tip of a three-edged arrow.

Based on their findings, the archaeologists have concluded that the spot they have excavated on the St. Peter Island in the Black Sea off the coast of Bulgaria’s Sozopol used to harbor a coastal shrine from the 5^th century BC.

The shrine was used as part of a ritual for making small soil mounds covered with stones.

That was the period of the Ancient Greek colonization of the Bulgarian Black Sea coast. No artifacts from other time periods have been found.

Bulgaria’s St. Ivan (St. John) Island off the coast of Sozopol (left) with the smaller St. Petar (St. Peter) Island to the right. Photo: Spiritia, Wikipedia

A Google Maps image showing the islands of St. Ivan and St. Petar, and the town of Sozopol with the St. Cyricus Island (today a peninsula), and the Stolets (Scamnia) Peninsula. Photo: Google Maps

The geological research carried out as part of the excavations has indicated that some 2,500 years ago, today’s St. Peter Island was part of the largest nearby St. Ivan Island, and that the two became separate islands at a much later stage.

The first ever archaeological excavations on the St. Peter Island near Sozopol have been led by Prof. Ivan Hristov, deputy director of the National Museum of History in Sofia, and Milen Nikolov, director of the Burgas Regional Museum of History. The geological research has been performed by Assist. Prof. Stefan Velev from Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”. The digs have been funded by Bulgaria’s Ministry of Culture.

Learn more about the ancient and medieval history of Bulgaria’s Black Sea city of Sozopol in the Background Infonotes below!

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Background Infonotes:

The history of the resort town Sozopol (Apollonia Pontica, Sozopolis) on Bulgaria’s Southern Black Sea coast started during the Early Bronze Age, in the 5^th millennium BC, as testified by the discoveries of artifacts found in underwater archaeological research, such as dwellings, tools, pottery, and anchors. In the 2^nd-1^st millennium BC, the area was settled by the Ancient Thracian tribe Scyrmiades who were experienced miners trading with the entire Hellenic world.

An Ancient Greek colony was founded there in 620 BC by Greek colonists from Miletus on Anatolia’s Aegean coast. The colony was first called Anthea but was later renamed to Apollonia in favor of Ancient Greek god Apollo, a patron of the setters who founded the town. It became known as Apollonia Pontica (i.e. of the Black Sea). Since the Late Antiquity, the Black Sea town has also been called Sozopolis.

The Greek colony of Apollonia Pontica emerged as a major commercial and shipping center, especially after the 5^th century AD when it became allied with the Odrysian Kingdom, the most powerful state of the Ancient Thracians. As of the end of the 6^th century BC, Apollonia Pontica started minting its own coins, with the anchor appearing on them as the symbol of the polis.

Apollonia became engaged in a legendary rivalry with another Ancient Greek colony, Mesembria, today’s Bulgarian resort town of Nessebar, which was founded north of the Bay of Burgas in the 6^th century BC by settlers from Megara, a Greek polis located in West Attica. According to some historical accounts, in order to counter Mesembria’s growth, Apollonia Pontica founded its own colony, Anchialos, today’s Pomorie (though other historical sources do not support this sequence of events), which is located right to the south of Mesembria.

Apollonia managed to preserve its independence during the military campaigns of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon under Philip II (r. 359-336 BC), and his son Alexander the Great (r. 336-323 BC). Apollonia, today’s Sozopol, is known to have had a large temple of Greek god Apollo (possibly located on the Sts. Quiricus and Julietta Island, also known as the St. Cyricus Island), with a 12-meter statue of Apollo created by Calamis, a 5^th century BC sculptor from Ancient Athens.

In 72 BC, Apollonia Pontica was conquered by Roman general Lucullus who took the Apollo statue to Rome and placed it on the Capitoline Hill. After the adoption of Christianity as the official religion in the Roman Empire, the statue was destroyed.

In the Late Antiquity, Apollonia, also called Sozopolis lost some of its regional center positions to Anchialos, and the nearby Roman colony Deultum (Colonia Flavia Pacis Deultensium). After the division of the Roman Empire into a Western Roman Empire and Eastern Roman Empire (today known as Byzantium) in 395 AD, Apollonia / Sozopolis became part of the latter. Its Late Antiquity fortress walls were built during the reign of Byzantine Emperor Anasthasius (r. 491-518 AD), and the city became a major fortress on the Via Pontica road along the Black Sea coast protecting the European hinterland of Constantinople.

In 812 AD, Sozopol was first conquered for Bulgaria by Khan (or Kanas) Krum, ruler of the First Bulgarian Empire (632/680-1018 AD) in 803-814 AD. In the following centuries of medieval wars between the Bulgarian Empire and the Byzantine Empire, Sozopol changed hands numerous times. The last time it was conquered by the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1396 AD) was during the reign of Bulgarian Tsar Todor (Teodor) Svetoslav Terter (r. 1300-1322 AD).

However, in 1366 AD, during the reign of Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Alexander (r. 1331-1371 AD), Sozopol was conquered by Amadeus IV, Count of Savoy from 1343 to 1383 AD, who sold it to Byzantium. During the period of the invasion of the Ottoman Turks at the end of the 14^th century and the beginning of the 15^th century AD, Sozopol was one of the last free cities in Southeast Europe. It was conquered by the Ottomans in the spring of 1453 AD, two months before the conquest of Constantinople despite the help of naval forces from Venice and Genoa.

In the Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, Sozopol was a major center of (Early) Christianity with a number of large monasteries such as the St. John the Baptist Monastery on St. Ivan Island off the Sozopol coast where in 2010 Bulgarian archaeologist Prof. Kazimir Popkonstantinov made a major discovery by finding relics of St. John the Baptist; the St. Apostles Monastery; the St. Nikolay (St. Nikolaos or St. Nicholas) the Wonderworker Monastery; the Sts. Quriaqos and Julietta Monastery on the St. Cyricus (St. Kirik) Island, the Holy Mother of God Monastery, the St. Anastasia Monastery.

During the Ottoman period Sozopol was often raided by Cossack pirates. In 1629, all Christian monasteries and churches in the city were burned down by the Ottoman Turks leading it to lose its regional role. In the Russian-Turkish War of 1828-1829, Sozopol was conquered by the navy of the Russian Empire, and was turned into a temporary military base.

After Bulgaria’s National Liberation from the Ottoman Empire in 1878, Sozopol remained a major fishing center. As a result of intergovernmental agreements for exchange of population in the 1920s between the Tsardom of Bulgaria and the Kingdom of Greece, most of the ethnic Greeks still remaining in Sozopol moved to Greece, and were replaced by ethnic Bulgarians from the Bulgarian-populated regions of Northern Greece.

The modern era archaeological excavations of Sozopol were started in 1904 by French archaeologists who later took their finds to The Louvre Museum in Paris, including ancient vases from the beginning of the 2^nd millennium BC, the golden laurel wreath of an Ancient Thracian ruler, and a woman’s statue from the 3^rd century BC. Important archaeological excavations of Sozopol were carried out between 1946 and 1949 by Bulgarian archaeologist Ivan Venedikov.

The most recent excavations of Sozopol’s Old Town started in 2010. In 2011-2012, Bulgarian archaeologists Tsonya Drazheva and Dimitar Nedev discovered a one-apse church, a basilica, and an Early Christian necropolis. Since 2012, the excavations of Sozopol have been carried out together with French archaeologists.

In 2010, during excavations of the ancient monastery on the St. Ivan (St. John) Island in the Black Sea, off the coast of Sozopol, Bulgarian archaeologist Prof. Kazimir Popkonstantinov discovered a reliquary containing relics of St. John the Baptist. In 1974, the Bulgarian government set up the Old Sozopol Archaeological and Architectural Preserve.

A 2012 National Geographic documentary featuring the discovery of the St. John the Baptist relics in Bulgaria’s Sozopol can be seen here (in English and here in Bulgarian).

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Ivan Dikov, the founder of ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com, is the author of the book Ugly Bargain: How the European Union and Bulgaria’s Post-Communist Oligarchy Fit Together, among other books.

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The ruins of the hexagonal tower, the massive central inside keep of the Rusocastro Fortress, are clearly visible in this aerial shot. Photo: Video grab from Burgas Regional Museum of History Facebook Page

Archaeologists have excavated in full a massive hexagonal tower keep, which towered in the 13^th-14^th century over the medieval Bulgarian and Byzantine fortress of Rusocastro in today’s Southeast Bulgaria.

The hexagonal fortress tower, or castle keep, of the Rusocastro Fortress has also turned out to have contained a workshop for the making artifacts from cattle and deer horns, judging from some of the finds.

The completion of the long-term research of the keep, i.e. the large central fortress tower of Rusocastro, has been announced by the Regional Museum of History in the Black Sea city of Burgas.

The Early Byzantine and medieval Bulgarian and Byzantine fortress of Rusocastro was the largest medieval fortress in today’s Southeast Bulgaria.

The Rusocastro Fortress is best known for the Battle of Rusocastro in 1332 AD. It was the last big military victory of the medieval Bulgarian Empire before it was conquered by the invading Ottoman Turks at the end of the 14^th century.

In it, Tsar Ivan Alexander (r. 1331-1371) of the Second Bulgarian Empire defeated Byzantine Emperor Andronicus III Palaeologus (Andronikos III Palaiologos) (r. 1328-1341 AD).

Learn more about the Rusocastro Fortress in the Background Infonotes below!

The keep, or central and tallest tower, of the Rusocastro Fortress had the shape of a hexagon. It was 16 meters long, and 11 meters wide, the Burgas Museum of History has announced upon the completion of the structure’s archaeological excavations.

The walls of the large fortress tower, which stood close to the middle of the Rusocastro Fortress in a manner typical of European medieval castles, were 1.9 meters thick.

It is estimated that the keep of the Rusocastro fortress was at least 15 to 18 meters tall. It is believed to have had three or four floors.

The remaining ruins from the hexagonal tower keep of the Rusocastro Fortress in Southeast Bulgaria. Photo: Burgas Regional Museum of History

A view out of the ruins of the hexagonal tower keep of the Rusocastro Fortress. Photo: Burgas Regional Museum of History

In the High and Late Middle Ages, the Rusocastro Fortress changed hands between the Second Bulgarian Empire and the Byzantine Empire, as part of the nearly seven centuries of medieval Bulgarian-Byzantine Wars.

According to the archaeologists from Bulgaria’s Black Sea city of Burgas, the massive hexagonal keep tower of the Rusocastro Fortress was constructed at the end of the 13^th century AD.

It was burned down in the 1370s, potentially during the invasion of the Balkans by the Ottoman Turks.

“The tower keep was built of extremely well-carved stone blocks. The construction was literally perfect,” the Burgas Museum of History explains.

“Unfortunately, it was precisely the beautiful stone blocks which caught the local population’s attention who used the ruins as a quarry for many centuries,” the Museum adds.

It points out that because of the extraction of construction material from the Rusocastro Fortress barely several stone blocks from the keep of the fortress have remained in place.

The archaeologists have established that the ground-level floor of the fortress keep was carefully plastered with mortar.

They believe that the first floor of the massive hexagonal fortress tower was most probably used as a cellar where various food products were kept.

Judging by some of the latest finds from the archaeological excavations, one of the floors of the keep of the Rusocastro Fortress apparently had a workshop for the making of horn artifacts.

“One of the greatest successes in the research of the site has been the finding of a workshop for horn items, which was situated on one of the keep’s floors. During the fire [which destroyed the tower] part of the products in question collapsed into the cellar, which is where it has been discovered by the archaeologists,” explains the Burgas Regional Museum of History.

The horns from the workshop are from domestic cattle, fallow deer, and red deer. In addition to horns which had been prepared for processing, the archaeologists have also discovered several completed horn artifacts.

These include a horn needles, horn handles, and an almost completed whistle, which is described by the museum as “a very valuable find.”

“Based on ethnographic analogies, the researchers hypothesize that it had been incorporated into a wooden flute,” the Burgas Museum says.

Processed horns from cattle and deer and almost complete horn artifacts from what was likely a horn artifact workshop inside the keep of the Rusocastro Fortress have been discovered by the archaeologists; the most intriguing item is a horn whistle. Photo: Burgas Regional Museum of History

The Museum notes that, “unfortunately”, much of the archaeological layer above the floor of the hexagonal tower keep of the Rusocastro Fortress has been destroyed by treasure hunters and by the digging of a military trench, most probably in the 1980s.

(As noted in the Background Infonotes below, the Rusocastro Fortress did suffer damages in 1982 during military drills of the Warsaw Pact, i.e. the military alliance of the former communist bloc in Eastern Europe led by the former Soviet Union.)

The 2020 archaeological excavations of the Rusocastro Fortress have been carried out by archaeologists from the Burgas Regional Museum of History with funding from the local authorities of Kameno Municipality and Bulgaria’s Ministry of Culture.

In 2019, among other finds, the archaeologists excavating the Rusocastro Fortress discovered camel bones and bones from European bison, which has been extinct in Bulgaria’s natural habitat for centuries.

A map of the Rusocastro Fortress, the largest medieval fortress in today’s Southeast Bulgaria. Map: Wikipedia

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Ivan Dikov, the founder of ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com, is the author of the book Plunder Paradise: How Brutal Treasure Hunters Are Obliterating World History and Archaeology in Post-Communist Bulgaria, among other books.

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Background Infonotes:

The Late Antiquity (Early Byzantine) and medieval Bulgarian and Byzantine fortress of Rusocastro (Rusocastron) is located in today’s Southeast Bulgaria, close to the Black Sea city of Burgas. Rusocastro was also known as “The Red Fortress” because of the red stones it was built of.

In the 2^nd millennium BC, the Ancient Thracians set up a shrine of the Sun God, the Mother Goddess, and the Thracian Horseman, also known as god Heros, near the legendary cave known today as Rusina Cave or Rusa’s Hole. Its site was settled in the period of Ancient Thrace, and was an important center in the Thracians’ Odrysian Kingdom.

The fortress itself was built in the 5^th century AD on a strategically located hill. The Early Byzantine fortress was most probably destroyed in the Slavic and Avar invasions in the 7^th century. The Rusocastro Fortress was rebuilt by the Bulgars in the 9^th century, during the First Bulgarian Empire (632/680 – 1018 AD), at the time of the construction of the Bulgarian border rampart known as Erkesiya (in use in the 9^th-11^th century), and was a major stronghold in the geographic region of Thrace during the High Middle Ages.

The earliest written information about the Rusocastro Fortress comes from a 6^th century epigraphic monument dedicated to Byzantine military commander Justin, who, according to some Bulgarian scholars, was the great-grandson of Byzantine Emperor Justin I (r. 518-527 AD), the uncle of Emperor Justinian I (r. 527-565 AD). The name Rusocastro was first used in the 12^th century by Arab geographer El Idrisi in his work “Geography of the World”, where Rusocastro is described as a large and crowded city. The fortress was also mentioned in a number of Byzantine sources from the 14^th century relevant to current events.

The Rusocastro Fortress is famous in Bulgarian history for the Rusocastro Battle in which the army of Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Alexander (r. 1331-1371 AD), ruler of the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1396 AD), defeated the forces of Byzantine Emperor Andronicus III Palaeologus (Andronikos III Palaiologos) (r. 1328-1341 AD) in 1332 AD.

The Battle of Rusocastro is often referred to as the last big military victory of the medieval Bulgarian Empire before its conquest by the invading Ottoman Turks at the end of the 14^th century.

Tsar Ivan Alexander’s victory at Rusocastro is considered the last major military victory of the Bulgarian Empire before its decline in the second half of the 14^th century, and its conquest by the Ottoman Turks that ushered in the darkest page in Bulgaria’s history, a period known as the Ottoman Yoke (1396-1878/1912). The Rusocastro Fortress was ultimately destroyed in Ottoman campaigns in 1443.

Rusocastro has been excavated by archaeologists Milen Nikolov and Tsanya Drazheva from the Burgas Regional Museum of History. The Bulgarian archaeologists have excavated several churches there including a monastery named after St. George, which existed in the 11^th-14^th century.

Unfortunately, a Christian necropolis in the Rusocastro Fortress was partly destroyed in the largest military drills dubbed “Shield” of the countries from the former Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact that took place in Eastern Bulgaria in 1982.

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Archaeological materials discovered in 2020 show that the submerged prehistoric settlement near the mouth of the Ropotamo River in Southeast Bulgaria was actually settled 6,000 years ago, in the Chalcolithic. Photo: archaeologist Kalin Dimitrov, via Radio Free Europe

Underwater archaeologists have discovered that a submerged prehistoric settlement near the mouth of the Ropotamo River in Southeast Bulgaria previously thought to be from the Bronze Age was in fact 1,000 years old, going back to the Chalcolithic (Copper Age), and have established that 5,000 years ago, the level of the Black Sea was 5 meters lower than it is today.

Archaeological traces from the submerged prehistoric settlement on the Black Sea coast, near the mouth of the Ropotamo River in Burgas District in Southeast Bulgaria were first stumbled upon in the 1970s.

In 2017-2019, an international archaeological team from the Black Sea MAP project discovered the submerged prehistoric settlement off the coast at the mouth of the Ropotamo River, and judged it to be from the Early Bronze Age.

The latest underwater archaeological expedition there, however, in September 2020, has now shown that the submerged prehistoric settlement on the Black Sea coast near the mouth was inhabited around 1,000 years earlier than previously believed.

Thus, the research of the Center for Underwater Archaeology based in Bulgaria’s Black Sea town of Sozopol has pushed back its dating to the Chalcolithic (Aeneolithic, Copper Age), ca. 4,000 BC, and it is 6,000 years old.

“Our discovery from this year are materials from the Copper Age from the settlement which at the time of its existence was situated entirely on land – since they have been found in a layer which is characteristic of the land environment,” archaeologist Kalin Dimitrov from the Sozopol Center for Underwater Archaeology has told the Bulgarian edition of Radio Free Europe.

Archaeological research so far indicates that the submerged prehistoric settlement near the mouth of the Ropotamo River in Southeast Bulgaria was continuously inhabited.

After its settling in the Chalcolithic 6,000 years ago, as it turns, it was also inhabited during the Bronze Age. And in the 6^th century AD, the Iron Age, the period of Ancient Thrace and of the Ancient Greek colonies on today’s Bulgarian Black Sea coast, the site had a sea port.

In 2017, as part of the Black Sea MAP project, which has produced a number of sensational discoveries from the sunken ships in Bulgaria’s Black Sea zone, the research of the prehistoric settlement at the mouth of the Ropotamo River was restarted due to the fact that the site is very well preserved, and has not been damaged by construction.

“Back then, our research between 2018 and 2020 showed that below the layer of the port there are Bronze Age settlement remains, dating back to the transition between the 4^th and the 3^rd millennium BC, from the very beginning of the Bronze Age on the Bulgarian [Black Sea] coast,” explains Dimitrov who has been the lead archaeologist in the research effort.

The underwater expedition in September 2020, however, have demonstrated that the settlement goes back to ca. 4,000 years BC, and that at the time it was entirely on land.

The newly discovered Chalcolthic materials show that humans lived in the now submerged prehistoric settlement 6,000 years ago, which is some 1,500 years before the construction of the Cheops Pyramid in Ancient Egypt in the 2,600 – 2,500 BC.

Parts of the wooden stilts that the prehistoric people used to support their homes already in the Bronze Age, after the sharp rise of the Black Sea level, can still be seen today. Photo: archaeologist Kalin Dimitrov, via Radio Free Europe

The above footage of Radio Free Europe provided by archaeologist Kalin Dimitrov shows the underwater research of the submerged prehistoric settlement near the mouth of the Ropotamo River.

The latest findings from the submerged prehistoric settlement at the mouth of the Ropotamo River, however, also reveal information about climate change and the effect on the rise of the sea level.

They show that about 5,000 years ago, that is, ca. 3,000 BC, the level of the Black Sea was about 5 meters lower than it is today.

The Bulgarian archaeologists have established that while during the original settling of the site near the mouth of the Ropotamo River in the Chalcolithic, the prehistoric coastal settlement was entirely on land, the level of the Black Sea rose rapidly, and in the subsequently Bronze Age the inhabitants of the place already had to build their homes above the water, on top of wooden stilts, i.e. they had to live in stilt houses.

Parts of the wooden stilts from the prehistoric stilt homes in question have been found surviving under water testifying to the rapid increase of the level of the Black Sea during the said period.

The archaeologists have also found out more about the Antiquity Era port which existed at the mouth of the Ropotamo River in Southeast Bulgaria.

“This port operated over a very long period of time, almost without interruption, from the 5^th century BC until the Modern Era,” Dimitrov says.

“If one looks at the materials from the various ages, it is very easy to notice the periods of prosperity, development, and wealth of this region, as well as the crisis periods, from which there are almost no materials left,” he elaborates.

The Antiquity port in question was the door to the valley of the Ropotamo River, which was a very fertile and rich region at the time.

The researchers believe that the Antiquity port in question was part of the territory controlled by the Ancient Greek colony of Apollonia Pontica, today’s Sozopol.

The Ropotamo port thus followed the rises and declines of Apollonia Pontica itself.

The Sozopol-based Center for Underwater Archaeology of the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia is set to keep researching the 6,000-year-old submerged prehistoric settlement at the mouth of the Ropotamo River in Southeast Bulgaria.

There Bulgarian underwater archaeologists have information of only one more similar submerged prehistoric settlement, whose remains are located below the Black Sea level, off the coast from the present-day port of Sozopol.

Learn more about the ancient and medieval history of Bulgaria’s Black Sea city of Sozopol in the Background Infonotes below!

Also check out these other underwater archaeology discoveries and stories from the Black Sea and Bulgaria:

2,400-Year-Old Ancient Greek Ship from Bulgaria’s Black Sea Zone Declared ‘World’s Oldest Intact’ Shipwreck

Archaeologists Discover Perfectly Preserved 2000-Year-Old Roman Ship, 20 Other Shipwrecks in Black Sea Off Bulgaria’s Coast

Pre-Columbian Mediterranean ‘Round’ Ship Discovered for the First Time by Underwater Archaeology Expedition in Bulgaria’s Black Sea Zone

5 Incredible Underwater Discoveries by Black Sea MAP in Bulgaria’s Zone: From Ancient Sunken Ships to the Biblical Deluge

Sunken Glass Treasure Discovered in Black Sea Underwater Archaeology Expedition near Bulgaria’s Burgas

5th Century BC Ancient Greek Shrine Discovered in First Ever Excavations on Tiny St. Peter Island off Bulgaria’s Black Sea Coast near Sozopol

Submerged Ancient Thracian Capital Seuthopolis in Bulgaria’s Koprinka Water Reservoir Could Be ‘Resurfaced’ with US Government Money

Large Sunken Island Existed off Bulgaria’s Black Sea Coast till Middle Ages, According to Roman Era Maps, Geomorphology Research

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Ivan Dikov, the founder of ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com, is the author of the book Ugly Bargain: How the European Union and Bulgaria’s Post-Communist Oligarchy Fit Together, among other books.

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Background Infonotes:

A 2012 National Geographic documentary featuring the discovery of the St. John the Baptist relics in Bulgaria’s Sozopol can be seen here (in English and here in Bulgarian).

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Three skeletons from medieval Christian burials with no burial gifts whatsoever have been found in rescue excavations in Bulgaria’s Devnya on top of a Late Antiquity layer. Photo: Devnenski Vazhod

Three skeletons from what appears to be a medieval necropolis have been discovered during rescue archaeological excavations at the ruins of the major Roman city of Marcianopolis (Marcianople) in today’s town of Devnya in Northeast Bulgaria.

Built on top of an Ancient Thracian settlement, Marcianopolis (Marcianople) was a very large and important city in the Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) in the Late Antiquity.

It is known for the surviving of stunning Roman and Byzantine mosaics have been preserved in the Museum of Roman Mosaics (“Museum of Mosaics”) in Bulgaria’s Devnya.

The latest archaeological discoveries from Marcianople in Devnya have resulted from rescue excavations carried out on a plot slated for construction by a private firm, local daily Devnenski Vazhod reports.

The archaeological team led by Assist. Prof. Hristo Kuzov from the Varna Museum of Archaeology drilled several spots prepared for the concrete foundations of a new storage facility.

The excavations have led to the discovery of a total of three skeletons, two of which are very well preserved.

The newly discovered burials contain no funeral inventories whatsoever but the bodies were placed with an east-west orientation, according to the Christian rites.

The discovery has led the archaeologists to conclude that the spot in question used to be a necropolis in the Middle Ages.

During the Middle Ages, the region was part of the First Bulgarian Empire, the Byzantine Empire, and the Second Bulgarian Empire, before its conquest by the Ottoman Turks at the end of the 14th century.

The lack of burial inventories leads to the assumptions that the burials are from the period after the 7^th century AD, since during the pre-Christian period there would always be adornments or other items left in the graves for use in the afterlife, Kuzov explains.

Three skeletons from medieval Christian burials with no burial gifts whatsoever have been found in rescue excavations in Bulgaria’s Devnya on top of a Late Antiquity layer. Photo: Devnenski Vazhod

While the sex of the buried persons is yet to be established for sure, the archaeologists believe that one of the skeletons belonged to a man. It is substantially larger, the skull has a massive jaw, and perfectly preserved teeth.

The second skeleton is smaller and seems to have belonged to a more slender person, likely a woman.

The third of the three newly discovered medieval skeletons is very compromised, with only parts of the skull and individual bones surviving. It was probably damaged during the construction of a water pipeline in recent decades.

In the layer beneath the seeming medieval necropolis with its Christian burials, the archaeologists have found the ruins of Late Antiquity structures from the Roman and Early Byzantine city of Macrinapolis (Marcianople).

“There are remains from the roof structures of buildings, coins from the 4^th – 5^th century AD, and pottery from the same period,” Kuzov says.

“Before the limited scope of the digs, there is no opportunity to study larger parts from the Antiquity buildings. There are individual walls of bricks and mortar as well as stone and mud,” he adds.

The newly discovered medieval human remains and the items from the Late Antiquity such as the copper or bronze coins are yet to be studied further by anthropologists, restorers, and museum staff.

The medieval skeletons and Late Antiquity ruins have been found in a spot slated for industrial construction in the town of Devnya in Northeast Bulgaria. Photo: Devnenski Vazhod

“What we can say at the present stage is that we are on the territory of a medieval necropolis. In the northern part of the site, we’ve found the solid foundations of Antiquity buildings but they cannot be studied in detail because the area hasn’t been excavated in full,” explains Ivan Sutev, Director of the Museum of Roman Mosaics in Devnya.

“The information we are receiving is useful because this area had not been excavated before. The area is close to the northern fortress wall of the Antiquity city. It now contains a small industrial base, which is why it has been inaccessible for research. Unfortunately, over the years, human activity has damaged the stratification of the of archaeological layers,” Sutev elaborates.

The archaeological team included also archaeologists Assist. Prof. Mihail Hristov from Veliko Tarnovo University “St. Cyril and St. Methodius”, and Miriyan Panteleev, a master’s student from the same university.

In 2019, the same team reaching the Ancient Roman city of Marcianopolis in today’s Devnya made headlines with the discovery of a hoard of gold early Byzantine coins from the 5^th century AD.

Learn more about the Ancient Roman and Early Byzantine city of Marcianopolis, today’s Bulgarian town of Devnya, in the Background Infonotes below!

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Relevant Books on Amazon.com:

Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire That Rescued Western Civilization

2: Byzantium, Pliska, and the Balkans (Millennium Studies)

DK Eyewitness Travel Guide Bulgaria

Lonely Planet Romania & Bulgaria (Travel Guide)

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Background Infonotes:

The ruins of the Ancient Roman and Early Byzantine city of Marcianopolis or Marcianople succeeded by the Bulgarian fortress Devina in the Middle Ages are located in today’s town of Devnya in Northeast Bulgaria, Varna District.

It was originally an Ancient Thracian settlement. The city was initially called Parthenopolis but was renamed by Roman Emperor Trajan (r. 98-117 AD) after his victory over the Dacians north of the Danube in 106 AD in honor of his sister Ulpia Marciana.

It was first mentioned in an inscription found in the Roman city of Lambaesis in the province of Numidia (in North Africa) by an inscription of a discharged Roman military veteran from Legio III Augusta (Augustus’ Third Legion) who was born in Marcianopolis.

The name of Marcianopolis was mentioned in the 4^th century AD Tabula Peutingeriana (the Peutinger Map showing cursus publicus, the road network in the Roman Empire, covering Europe, North Africa and parts of Asia), and in the so called Antonine Itinerary (Itinerarium Antonini Augusti, “The Itinerary of Emperor Antoninus”), an Ancient Roman register of road stations. Altogether, it was mentioned or described a number of times in a wide range of ancient epigraphic and literary sources, the last being a work by Byzantine historian Theophylact Simocatta from 596 AD.

An important strategic centre, the city was part of the Roman province of Thrace until 187–193, and then of the province of Moesia inferior. Its fortress wall was probably erected after an invasion by the Costoboci in 170 AD. The city grew substantially during the period of the Severan Dynasty (r. 193-235 AD). It was first besieged by the Goths in 248-249 AD, and then conquered in 250 AD by the Gothic chieftain Cniva.

It is believed that during this conquest a large coin treasure (possibly the city treasury) was hidden. It consists of about 100,000 silver denarii minted between 64 and 238 AD by a total of 44 Roman emperors and empresses, and weighing a combined total of 350 kg. The treasure was discovered by accident in 1929 in the outskirts of Bulgaria’s Devnya, on the territory of the former Roman city of Marcianopolis (Marcianople). Today, nearly 69,000 of these coins are kept in the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia, and more than 12,000 are kept in the Varna Museum of Archaeology. Thousands more are believed to have ended up in the hands of private collectors and treasure hunters.

In 267 AD, Marcianopolis (Marcianople) was targeted by another major barbarian invasion of the Goths and other tribes but was not conquered. Under Roman Emperor Diocletian (r. 284-305 AD), Marcianople became the main city of the newly formed province of Moesia Secunda, one the six provinces in the Diocese of Thrace. It was continuously rebuilt growing in importance gradually eclipsing Odessus (Odessos), today’s Black Sea city of Varna.

In 332 AD, Emperor Constantine I the Great (r. 306-337 AD) visited Marcianople during a campaign against the Goths and other barbarian tribes led by his son Constantine (later Co-Emperor Constantine II, r. 337-340).

In 368 AD, Roman Emperor Valens used it as a winter residence and a de facto temporary capital during his campaigns against the Goths in the First Gothic War of 367-369 AD. Later, in 376 AD, Valens allowed a group of Visigoths to settle as foederati in the provinces of Moesia Secunda and Scythia Minor. They rebelled the following year, and defeated the Romans in a major battle near Marcianopolis. Valens himself perished fighting the Goths in the Battle of Adrianople of 378 AD.

In the 4^th century AD, Marcianople was the center of a bishopric as testified by a bishop’s basilica discovered there in 1957.

Later, as in the Early Byzantine period, in 447 AD, Marcianople (Marcianopolis) was conquered and destroyed by Attila’s Huns after the Battle of the Utus (Vit) River. It was rebuilt in 471 AD, and settled with Ostrogothic foederati who remainded there until 488 AD.

In 587 AD, Marcianople (Marcianopolis) was briefly conquered by the Avars, and in 596 AD, it was used to rally the troops of the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire for their campaign against the Avars and Slavs north of the Danube. The large Roman and Byzantine city was once against destroyed by the Avars and Slavs in 614-615 AD and was ultimately abandoned.

After the Slavs settled in today’s Bulgaria in the 7^th century AD, they called the ruins of Marcianopolis Devina. The archaeological excavations of the Ancient Roman amphitheater of Marcianople have also led to the discovery of a small Ancient Bulgar fortress whose wall is 3.4 meters wide. It was built with large limestone blocks extracted from the collapsed Antiquity buildings of the Roman / Byzantine city.

The Ancient Bulgar fortress at Devina / Marcianopolis was probably built during the reign of Khan Omurtag (r. 814-831 AD), one of the most notable rulers of the First Bulgarian Empire (632/680-1018) known for his large-scale construction project. The preserved structures from this fortress include two pentagonal gate towers.

The Ancient Bulgar fortress was expanded in the 10^th-11^th century, and was ultimately destroyed and abandoned when the Ottoman Turks invaded the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1396) at the end of the 14^th century. After that, the settlement which emerged as today’s Bulgarian town of Devnya was moved to the west.

The excavated ruins of Marcianopolis (Marcianople) feature remains from the Roman amphitheater, a Roman villa, and Roman / Byzantine mosaics some of which have been preserved and exhibited in situ in the Museum of Mosaics in the town of Devnya, a bishop’s basilica, and another basilica.

The ruins of ancient Marcianople were first identified in 1829 (during the Russian-Turkish War of 1828-1829) by Russian archaeologist Ivan Blaramberg. At the end of the 19^th century, they were described by Czech-Bulgarian historian Konstantin Jirecek.

The ancient amphitheater of the Roman and Byzantine city of Marcianopolis was partly excavated in 1958-1961 by archaeologist Goranka Toncheva from the Varna Museum of Archaeology.

Many of the structures, including a huge villa urbana were excavated during five archaeological seasons between 1976 and 1986 by archaeologists Alexander Minchev, Petko Georgiev, and Anastas Angelov.

The excavated ruins with their beautiful Late Roman and Early Byzantine wall and floor mosaics have been exhibited, some of them in situ, in the Museum of Roman Mosaics in the town of Devnya.

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The post Skeletons from Medieval Christian Necropolis Found on Top of Ruins of Ancient Marcianopolis in Bulgaria’s Devnya appeared first on Archaeology in Bulgaria. and Beyond.

The building of the former fishing school, a secret school for the training of Bulgarian naval officers in the wake of World War I, was built in the 1920s, and is the largest building on the St. Cyricus Island in Sozopol: Photo: French Ambassador Florence Robine on Twitter

Bulgaria’s Ministry of Culture is planning to use help from the Louvre Museum in Paris, France, and its affiliate in Abu Dhabi, OAE, in order to turn the St. Cyricus Island, formerly a small Black Sea island off the coast of the resort of Sozopol, and now a peninsula connected to the mainland, into a archaeology museum and center for the arts.

The St. Cyricus Island, more precisely named Sts. Quiricus and Julietta Island, is rich in archaeological finds since the dawn of the settlement of Sozopol, which emerged as the Ancient Greek colony of Apollonia Pontica on the Western Black Sea coast in the 6^th century BC.

The St. Cyricus Island (or the Sts. Quiricus and Julietta Island) is believed to have been the site of the Colossus of Apollonia Pontica, a large, 13-meter-tall bronze statue of Ancient Greek god Apollo towering in the harbor of the Greek colony for four centuries before it was seized by the Romans and taken to Rome.

The Colossus of Apollonia Pontica has been likened to the taller and far more famous Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, with an initiative in recent years to rebuild the Colossus of Apollonia Pontica and instill him back on the St. Cyricus Island based on images from Apollonia Pontica’s coins.

Among the many archaeological wonders of Bulgaria’s Sozopol is also the 2010 discovery of relics of St. John the Baptist in an Early Christian monastery on the nearby island of St. Ivan (St. John). The presence of the holy relics there has been construed as a counterbalance to the religious significance of the ancient city in the pagan period.

The project in question has not born fruit yet, and has not been mentioned in the plans of the Bulgarian Ministry of Culture for the former Black Sea island, and now a peninsula.

The St. Cyricus Island (or the Sts. Quiricus and Julietta Island) has been part of the Sozopol archaeological preserve since 1965. However, access to it was restricted up until 2005 because it used to harbor a base of the Bulgarian Navy since the 1920s, and also during the entire Communist Era.

The St. Cyricus Island was linked to the Bulgarian mainland in 1927. The site was base of the Bulgarian Navy until 2007.

The naval base was erected in the 1920s under the guise of a fishing school for the training of Bulgarian naval officers because under the severe terms of the Treaty of Neuilles-sur-Seine of 1919, part of the Versailles Treaty, that ended World War I for Bulgaria, the country was not allowed to have a military fleet.

A modern-day view of the St. Cyricus Island (a peninsula connected to the mainland since 1927) which is where the 5th century BC 13-meter statue of Apollo the Healer, i.e. the Colossus of Apollonia, was located. Photo: Wikipedia

A photo showing the St. Cyricus Island ca. 1920, before it was linked to the Bulgarian mainland in 1927. The site was a base of the Bulgarian Navy until 2007. The naval base was erected in the 1920s under the guise of a fishing school for the training of Bulgarian naval officers since under the Treaty of Neuilles-sur-Seine of 1919 that ended World War I for Bulgaria, the country was not allowed to have a military fleet. Photo: Lost Bulgaria

A 2011 collage showing what the Colossus of Apollonia might have looked like on the St. Cyricus Island (today a peninsula) in Bulgaria’s Sozopol. Photo: e-vestnik

The St. Cyricus Island has been undergoing archaeological excavations since 2009 led by Assoc. Prof. Krastina Panayotova from the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia, who has also been excavating other parts of Sozopol together with French archaeologists.

Bulgaria’s Minister of Culture Boil Banov has announced that the government is now planning to try to use the entire island, or peninsula, of St. Cyricus (Sveti Kirik in Bulgarian) as an open-air museum of archaeology and an arts space.

The future St. Cyricus museum in Bulgaria’s Sozopol is supposed to be connected with the Louvre Museum in Paris, France, and the Louvre Museum in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, built in 2007 in cooperation with the French government.

“[It is going to become] a museum of archaeology. You know what kind of things have been extracted from the island, it is a unique archaeological site. It should also have a museum of underwater archaeology, where we would put together everything coming out of our Black Sea coast,” Banov has commented, as cited by Nova TV.

He has said that the now abandoned buildings on the St. Cyricus Island which used to be part of the former naval school would be repaired and used as part of the future Louvre-sponsored project.

“I am extremely impressed from what I have seen. The buildings are creating an exquisite appearance of the site but they should be restored,” France’s Ambassador to Bulgaria, Florence Robine, is quoted as saying.

She accompanied Banov on a visit to Sozopol and the St. Cyricus Island together with a delegation of experts from the Louvre Museum in Paris and the Museum Agency of France (Agence France-Museums) on Thursday, November 12, 2020.

The group of high-profile visitors also included OAE Ambassador to Bulgaria Sultan Rashid Sultan Alkaytub Alnuaymi.

French archaeologist Alexandre Baralis from the Department of Ancient Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities in the Louvre Museum in Paris, also a long-time researcher of Sozopol together with Panayotova, was also part of the delegation.

The French side is expected to include the future museum on the St. Cyricus Island in Bulgaria’s Sozopol – mentioned by French Ambassador Robine in a tweet as the “World Center of Arts” in Bulgaria – in the network of the Louvre in Paris and the Louvre in Abu Dhabi.

French Ambassador Florence Robine (third from the left) and Bulgaria’s Minister of Culture Boil Banov (fourth from the right) during the delegation’s visit on the St. Cyricus Island in Sozopol. Photo: French Ambassador Florence Robine on Twitter

The Bulgarian – French – OAE delegation is seen inspecting the St. Cyricus Island in Sozopol. Photo: French Ambassador Florence Robine on Twitter

“The place [the St. Cyricus Island] might look squalid now but here beneath those sacks, beneath the soil lie conserved exceptional archaeological sites,” says Assist. Prof. Nayden Prahov, Director of the Center for Underwater Archaeology in Sozopol, a body of the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia, which is part of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

“The earliest Ancient Greek temple in Bulgaria from the Archaic period, the 6^th century BC, is located here, several other ancient temples, ritual pits,” Prahov says, as cited by bTV.

He adds that the existing buildings on the St. Cyricus Island are in a horrible condition due to the weather effects as well as human actions and inaction.

The most famous and largest building on the St. Cyricus Island is the fishing school from the 1920s, the secret training place for the Bulgarian Navy in the wake of World War I. The building itself is a monument of culture of national importance, and has been the property of the Bulgarian Ministry of Culture since 2005 but is only partly preserved.

“Nothing will be torn down! By the way, the building is made of steel-reinforced concrete so its construction is very sturdy. Funding will be provided by the three countries participating in the project (i.e. Bulgaria, France, and the UAE – editor’s note), and also probably from EU funds,” Bulgaria’s Ministry of Culture Boil Banov is quoted as saying.

The final project for the development of the museum island on the St. Cyricus Island peninsula in Bulgaria’s Sozopol is expected to be ready within six months.

The location of the St. Cyricus Island, now a peninsula connected with the mainland, to the west of Sozopol’s Old Town. Map: Google Maps

According to Banov, in addition to archaeology and underwater archaeology finds, the future museum island is going to feature modern arts in all possible genres.

“[In addition to the archeological remains] our goal is to realize and combine the eclectics within the unique architecture of the former Naval School [from the 1920s], the old Communist Era architecture of the barracks, to achieve a combination of worlds, of different dreams by different generations, which I think is going to make this a unique place. Everything will be restored, exhibited, revealed in such a way that tourists will have direct access,” the Minister of Culture says, as cited by the Sega daily.

“We are prepared to collaborate using the expertise of the Louvre Museum, the Louvre in Abu Dhabi, and the French Museum Agency for the realization of this project, which is going to add archaeological and cultural value to this region, and which I would like to see happen within the said terms,” French Ambassador in Sofia Robine has said in turn.

The St. Cyricus (Sveti Kirik) Island has a territory of 8 hectares, and is about 250 meters away from the coast of the Bulgarian mainland in the town of Sozopol.

It is the only of Bulgaria’s several small islands in the Black Sea which is connected with the mainland through a breakwater. Together with the Stolets Peninsula (Scamnium) it is the oldest inhabited part of Sozopol, the successor of the Ancient Greek colony of Apollonia Pontica.

Comments in Bulgarian media with respect to the initiative for turning the St. Cyricus Island into an arts center of global significance with aid from the Louvre have been skeptical, reminding that grandiose promises for the place have been put forth by various Bulgarian government offices since at least 2006.

Learn more about the ancient and medieval history of Bulgaria’s Black Sea city of Sozopol in the Background Infonotes below!

Also check out these stories about Sozopol’s rich archaeological heritage:

Bulgaria’s Sozopol to Restore Ancient Statue of Apollo, ‘Colossus of Apollonia Pontica’, Not Unlike Greece’s Plans to Rebuild Colossus of Rhodes

Archaeologists Find Ceramic Sarcophagus in Necropolis of Ancient Greek Polis Apollonia Pontica in Bulgaria’s Sozopol

Skeletons Found in Early Christian Tomb on St. Ivan Island off Bulgaria’s Sozopol Belonged to Syrian Monks Who Brought St. John the Baptist’s Relics

Archaeologists Find 2,600-Year-Old ‘Arrow Coins’ near Apollo Temple in Ancient Apollonia Pontica in Bulgaria’s Sozopol

Bulgarian, French Archaeologists Find Unique Apollo Roof Tiles, Ancient Greek Funerals near Sozopol

2,500-Year-Old ‘Metallurgical Plant’ at Ancient Copper Mine Discovered near Bulgaria’s Black Sea Town Sozopol

Archaeologists Find 6th Century BC Home, Red-Figure Pottery Krater Depicting Oedipus and the Sphinx from Apollonia Pontica in Bulgaria’s Sozopol

5th Century BC Ancient Greek Shrine Discovered in First Ever Excavations on Tiny St. Peter Island off Bulgaria’s Black Sea Coast near Sozopol

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Ivan Dikov, the founder of ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com, is the author of the book Ugly Bargain: How the European Union and Bulgaria’s Post-Communist Oligarchy Fit Together, among other books.

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Background Infonotes:

The history of the resort town Sozopol (Apollonia Pontica, Sozopolis) on Bulgaria’s Southern Black Sea coast started during the Early Bronze Age, in the 5^th millennium BC, as testified by the discoveries of artifacts found in underwater archaeological research, such as dwellings, tools, pottery, and anchors. In the 2^nd-1^st millennium BC, the area was settled by the Ancient Thracian tribe Scyrmiades who were experienced miners trading with the entire Hellenic world.

A 2012 National Geographic documentary featuring the discovery of the St. John the Baptist relics in Bulgaria’s Sozopol can be seen here (in English and here in Bulgarian).

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The post Bulgaria to Turn Former Black Sea Island near Sozopol into Archaeology Museum with Aid from Louvre, France, OAE appeared first on Archaeology in Bulgaria. and Beyond.

Prof. Kazimir Popkonstantinov is seen here in August 2010 on St. Ivan Island during the discovery of the relics of St. John the Baptist. Photo: Sozopol Municipality

The case of the theft of a particle from the holy relics of St. John the Baptist committed in the city of Sliven back in 2012, less than 2 years after the relics’ discovery on a Black Sea island, has remained unresolved and the crime, likely an inside job, has gone unpunished, relics finder, archaeologist Kazamir Popkonstantinov, has lamented.

In August 2020, the Black Sea town of Sozopol, of which the St. Ivan (St. John) Island is a part, marked the 10^th anniversary since Popkonstantinov’s remarkable archaeological discovery. The 5th annivesary was celebrated with more events 5 years ago.

Back in August 2010, during excavations of an ancient monastery on the Bulgarian Black Sea island of St. Ivan (St. John) near Sozopol, Bulgarian archaeologist Prof. Kazimir Popkonstantinov discovered a reliquary containing relics of St. John the Baptist.

The relics consist of of small bone particles from a skull, a jaw bone, an arm bone, and a tooth. They are presently kept at the St. Cyril and St. Methodius Church in Sozopol.

The discovery of the St. John the Baptist relics in the Early Christian monastery on the Black Sea island off the coast of Bulgaria’s Sozopol made global headlines and has generated huge international interest.

The relics of St. John the Baptist were discovered in the St. Ivan (St. John) Island on the Black Sea coast near Sozopol back in the summer of 2010 by Prof. Kazimir Popkonstantinov in the ruins of an Early Christian monastery from the end of the 4^th and the beginning of the 5^th century AD, around the time of the division of the Roman Empire.

The relics were inside a marble reliquary which was 18 centimeters long and 14 centimeters wide.

Popkonstantinov has been categorical that the relics belonged to St. John the Baptist judging from an inscription in Greek on the reliquary mentioning “Yoan” (John), and reading, “God, help your slave Thomas who carried on June 24….” – June 24 being the birth date of St. John the Baptist.

Scholars from Oxford University tested the relics and concluded and found evidence that they could have indeed belonged to St. John the Baptist. Radiocarbon and genetic testing revealed that the human remains in question did belong to a Middle Eastern man who lived at the time of Jesus Christ.)

Back in April 2012, during a worship stint in a church in the city of Sliven in Southeast Bulgaria, a particle from the St. John the Baptist relics was stolen.

The Sliven Bishopric of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church went 9 days without reporting the relic theft to the police, and two months later the investigation was terminated, with archaeologist Kazimir Popkonstantinov declared back then his confidence that the theft had been an inside job.

“A relic particle was stolen when the relics were in Sliven’s cathedral in April 2012. I was stunned. They had stolen the particle which contained the largest amount of collagen,” the archaeologists has told the 24 Chasa daily in an interview 10 years after his discovery of the St. John the Baptist relics, and more than 8 years after the theft.

“I don’t want to bring upon myself another sin but there is no way, inside the church, with so many people next to the spot where the relics were on display, for some [outside] just to break the seal, tear it up, lift up the lid [of the box], and take whatever they wanted,” Popkonstantinov says, reiterating his understanding since back in 2012 that the relic theft had been committed by an insider.

He also reveals he learned the news about the stolen relic particle from a TV anchor who had learned about the missing relic particle.

“I immediately called [Sliven’s] Bishop Yoanikiy and the secretary of the bishopric, and they started to whine. Then I told them directly: This could only be an inside person. It doesn’t matter whether it was a clergyman or a secular person,” the archaeologist recalls.

“They [law enforcement] started investigating the leads but then they stopped. The theft has remained unresolved,” Popkonstantinov emphasizes.

He also stresses that 10 years after his discovery of the St. John the Baptist relics on St. Ivan Island in the Black Sea off Bulgaria’s Sozopol global interest in the relics is not subsiding.

So far top international broadcasters who have filmed documentaries about the discovery include the National Geographic Channel, the History Channel, German TV ZDF, and a crew from a leading Brazilian TV station.

“Three years ago Assoc. Prof. Rosina Kostova and I were invited to the largest [European] pilgrimage center, Santiago de Compostela, to participate in an international conference, together with experts in Christian archaeology from 13 different countries. And one of the organizers asked me if he could touch my right hand. ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Because you probably used that one to extract the reliquary. I will be able to tell my brother that I’ve touched the hand of the finder of St. John the Baptist’s relics,” Popkonstantinov narrates.

“Our colleagues from Oxford and Copenhagen who took the DNA samples from the relics were also there,” he recalls.

The archaeologist also complains that there has been little funding to continue the archaeological excavations on St. Ivan Island near Sozopol where he found the holy relics.

“Luckily, the two temples [from the Early Christian monastery] are preserved to a certain height. The basilica from the end of the 4^th and beginning of 5^th century has survived up to 4 meters in height but it is collapsing slowly,” Popkonstantinov says.

“Back then, the late Prof. Bozhidar Dimitrov was insisting [on more government money] for funding. For more than 12 years, and especially after the finding of the relics, we have been touting [the need for funding]. There were members of parliament who came there, ambassadors, the then finance minister Simeon Djankov. All of them promised [funding], and nothing [followed]. We are now calling up a commission to come [to the island]. We have a project for conservation and restoration. After four years of being rejected [for government funding], this year we’ve resumed the excavations thanks to two foundations,” the archaeologist explains, saying more structures from 1,500 years ago have been discovered.

Learn more about the history and archaeology of the Black Sea town of Sozopol in Southeast Bulgaria in the Background Infonotes below!

Also check out these other stories about the St. John the Baptist relics and the St. Ivan Island in the Black Sea:

St. John the Baptist Relics Ended Up in Bulgaria’s Sozopol to Counterbalance Huge Ancient Apollo Statue and Temple, Archaeologist Hypothesizes

Skeletons Found in Early Christian Tomb on St. Ivan Island off Bulgaria’s Sozopol Belonged to Syrian Monks Who Brought St. John the Baptist’s Relics

Archaeologist Finds Two Human Skeletons, One Ram Skeleton in Early Christian Tomb on St. Ivan Island in Black Sea Off Bulgaria’s Sozopol

Bulgaria’s Sozopol Granted Access to Ecumenical Patriarchate’s Archives over St. Ivan Island in Black Sea

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Ivan Dikov, the founder of ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com, is the author of the book Ugly Bargain: How the European Union and Bulgaria’s Post-Communist Oligarchy Fit Together, among other books.

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Background Infonotes:

A 2012 National Geographic documentary featuring the discovery of the St. John the Baptist relics in Bulgaria’s Sozopol can be seen here (in English and here in Bulgarian).

****************************************************************************

Ivan Dikov, the founder of ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com, is the author of the book Ugly Bargain: How the European Union and Bulgaria’s Post-Communist Oligarchy Fit Together, among other books.

****************************************************************************

Support ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com on Patreon

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Become a Patron Now!

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The post 8 Years after Theft of St. John the Baptist Relics in Bulgaria’s Sliven, Finder Laments Unresolved Case appeared first on Archaeology in Bulgaria. and Beyond.

This horse shoulder blade bone (scapula) from ca. 1300 found in the Rusocastro Fortress in Southeast Bulgaria has three symmetrical, lined up burning marks, indicating a potential and completely unknown magic ritual, according to the scholars’ hypothesis. The ritual doesn’t seem likely to be connected with the Ancient Bulgars but may have to do with the Cumans or the Mongols (Tatars). Photo: Burgas Regional Museum of History

A horse scapula, i.e. a shoulder blade bone, with traces from eating and bizarre traces of burning from ca. 1300 AD, meaning it might have been used in some kind of mysterious and thus far unknown “magic” ritual, has been discovered in the Rusocastro Fortress in Southeast Bulgaria.

The horse scapula, or shoulder blade, in question is from the end of the 13^th century or the beginning of the 14^th century, the Regional Museum of History in the Black Sea city of Burgas has announced.

The 2020 archaeological excavations of Rusocastro – the largest medieval fortress and castle in today’s Southeast Bulgaria, a long-time stronghold of both the medieval Bulgarian Empire and the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire – were completed in October.

They have led to the full unearthing of the foundations of what was a huge hexagonal central fortress tower, or a keep, among other discoveries – including a large fragment from the eastern fortress wall and a previously unknown rectangular tower on the outer fortress wall.

In it, Tsar Ivan Alexander (r. 1331-1371) of the Second Bulgarian Empire defeated Byzantine Emperor Andronicus III Palaeologus (Andronikos III Palaiologos) (r. 1328-1341 AD).

The horse shoulder blade bone with traces from a potentially unknown medieval magic ritual has been among the numerous animal bones discovered by the Bulgarian archaeologist in the Rusocastro Fortress in the 2020 digs. However, the traces from a potential ritual have been noticed during the subsequent analysis of all bones.

The Burgas Museum of History points out that every single animal bone found in Rusocastro gets studied meticulously after the archaeological excavations.

An aerial view of the Rusocastro Fortress in Southeast Bulgaria after the 2020 excavations exposed its hexagonal central fortress tower, or a keep. Photo: Burgas Regional Museum of History

During the study of the animal bones found in 2020 in the massive fortress, Bulgarian archaezoologist Georgi Ribarov “has stumbled upon an extremely interesting find”, the Museum says with respect to the horse scapula from ca. 1300 AD.

The horse shoulder blade has been found in an archaeological layer from the end of the 13^th and the beginning of the 14^th century.

The horse meat from the bone was first eaten, and then the bone itself appears to have been marked by pressing a hot or burning item against it.

“[The horse shoulder blade] had undergone thermal processing – the [horse] meat was eaten after it had been roasted, which is clearly visible from the typical change in the bone color,” the Burgas Museum says.

“Afterwards, on one side of the horse scapula there are three spots with clearly visible traces of burning,” it adds.

“It is almost certain that this was [caused by the] pressing of [a] heated iron [artifact] with a round cross section upon the surface of the bone. In this way, three circles situated at an equal distance from one another, in a straight line, were burned through,” the Museum explains.

It further emphasizes that similar cases of bones with this specific pattern of seemingly ritual burning have been known.

“No such cases are known from scientific literature and historical sources. In traditional Bulgarian [Ancient Bulgar] culture, the horse is a very powerful, sacred animal, and such actions upon horse bones are extremely unusual. It is known that there was customs of fortune telling using lamb shoulder bones by a special person [who was a] fortuneteller but no such rituals have been known with a horse [should] bone,” the Burgas Museum of History elaborates.

“At the present moment, the researchers’ working hypothesis is that this was a ritual act – some kind of a magic which is completely unknown [without any] parallels in traditional Bulgarian culture,” the Museum adds.

It is important to note that the pagan period of the Ancient Bulgars, according to recent conclusions, an Iranian people from Western and Central Eurasia, ended in 864 AD when the First Bulgarian Empire (632/680 – 1018) formally converted to Christianity. The period the horse scapula from the Rusocastro Fortress is dated to, ca. 1300, is more than 400 years later, during the time of the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185 – 1396/1422), a very well-established Christian power.

“[We] cannot rule out the possibility that this find [the horse shoulder blade with the three symmetrical burning marks] may be connected with a completely foreign culture – it is possible that Mongols (Tatars) or Cumans may have performed this documented magical action,” the Burgas Museum of History says.

The Mongols or Tatars invaded Eastern Europe in the 1240s, reaching the Second Bulgarian Empire from the northeast, through the plains north of the Black Sea, in today’s Russia and Ukraine, and played a very active role in the politics of the Second Bulgarian Empire and the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire well into the 14^th century, up until all of Southeast Europe was conquered by the Ottoman Turks invading from the southeast.

At one point, a Mongol or Tatar leader, Chaka, even ended up for several months on the Bulgarian throne as Tsar of the Second Bulgarian Empire in 1299-1300 AD, having been married to a Bulgarian princess, a daughter of by Tsar Georgi I Terter (r. 1280-1292), and using infighting in Bulgaria as well as in the Golden Horde, one of the Mongol (Tatar) successor states of the Mongol Empire of Ghengis Khan.

Chaka was a great-great-great-grandson of Ghengis Khan, and son of Khan Nogai, who was himself a great-great-grandson of Ghengis Khan and ruler of the Golden Horde.

Chaka was deposed and killed in the Bulgarian capital Tarnovgrad in 1300 by an heir to the Bulgarian throne, the future Tsar Teodor Svetoslav (r. 1300 – 1322), one of the more successful rulers of the Second Bulgarian Empire, with the aid of forces from the dominant faction in the Golden Horde at the time.

A number of Mongol or Tatar finds from the 13^th – 14^th century have been found by Bulgarian archaeologists, including some intriguing discoveries in recent years, even some items from medieval China which may have been brought by the Mongols.

The Cumans, on the other hand, were a Turkic nomadic people also from the steppes of Western Eurasia, who arrived earlier to Southeast Europe, and were closely allied with the Second Bulgarian Empire ever since its restoration in 1185 AD, including through aristocratic marriages and military ties.

The meticulous analysis of the numerous animal bones discovered in the Rusocastro Fortress in Southeast Bulgaria so far has yielded very intriguing revelations, including that the now extinct wild cattle aurochs survived in today’s Bulgaria until the 14^th century, and also the fact that European bison and camels were present in the area.

During the 2020 excavations, the Burgas archaeologists also found that one of the floors of the hexagonal centrally located tower keep of the Rusocastro Fortress had a workshop for the making of artifacts out of horns from animals such as cattle, fallow deer, and red deer, one of the most interesting being a nearly completed horn whistle.

Learn more about the Rusocastro Fortress in the Background Infonotes below!

Also check out:

Massive Hexagonal Tower Keep, Horn Workshop Excavated in Medieval Fortress Rusocastro in Southeast Bulgaria

Extinct Wild Cattle Aurochs Survived until 13th-14th Century in Today’s Bulgaria, Bones from Medieval Rusocastro Fortress Show

Bones of Camels, European Bison Discovered in Medieval Rusocastro Fortress in Southeast Bulgaria

Gold, Silver Treasure Pot with Tatar Leader’s Plunder Discovered in Kaliakra Fortress on Bulgaria’s Black Sea Coast

Decline of Bulgarian, Byzantine Empires before Ottoman Conquest Revealed by Tatar Plunder Treasure Pot from Black Sea Fortress Kaliakra

Nephrite Amulet Buckle from China Discovered in Bulgaria’s Black Sea Kaliakra Cape Fortress

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Background Infonotes:

The Battle of Rusocastro is often referred to as the last big military victory of the medieval Bulgarian Empire before its conquest by the invading Ottoman Turks at the end of the 14^th century.

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The post Horse Shoulder Blade with Mysterious ‘Magic’ Ritual Marks from ca. 1300 AD Discovered in Rusocastro Fortress in Southeast Bulgaria appeared first on Archaeology in Bulgaria. and Beyond.

The newly uncovered structure of the holy well, or ayazmo, of the 4th – 5th century AD Early Christian monastery on Bulgaria’s St. Ivan Island goes down at least 5 meters in depth, and utilized the previously existing holy spring of an Ancient Greek temple of sun god Apollo. Lead archaeologist Kazimir Popkonstantinov is seen inside. Photo: Video grab from Darik Burgas

Archaeologists have discovered the 1,500-year-old holy well, or ayazmo, of the Early Christian monastery on the St. Ivan Island off the coast of Bulgaria’s Black Sea town of Sozopol, which was built on top of an Ancient Greek temple of Apollo, and where 10 years ago the same team discovered holy relics of St. John the Baptist.

The archaeologists have exposed the holy well (a spring of holy water), also known as an “ayazmo”, on the St. Ivan (St. John) Island reaching a depth of almost 5 meters.

The St. Ivan Island, tiny as it is, is also the largest of Bulgaria’s islands in the Black Sea, and also the tallest of them, with its highest point towering at 33 meters above sea level.

In August 2020, the Black Sea town of Sozopol, of which the St. Ivan (St. John) Island is a part, marked the 10^th anniversary since the remarkable archaeological discovery made by the team led by Prof. Kazimir Popkonstantinov, an expert in Christian archaeology from Veliko Tarnovo University “St. Cyril and St. Methodius”. The 5th annivesary was celebrated with more events 5 years ago.

The relics consist of of small bone particles from a skull, a jaw bone, an arm bone, and a tooth. They are presently kept at the St. Cyril and St. Methodius Church in Sozopol.

Unfortunately, in 2012 in Sliven, a theft of a particle from the St. John the Baptist was committed, and 8 years later the case has remained unresolved, with Popkonstantinov reiterating his original conviction that the stealing of the relics had been an inside job.

During the 2020 archaeological excavations of the Early Christian monastery named after St. John the Baptist on St. Ivan Island off the coast of Bulgaria’s Sozopol, Popkonstantinov’s team has found further evidence of civilized life on the Island as early as the 6^th century BC – which is the period when Ancient Greek settlers founded Apollonia Pontica, the predecessor of today’s Sozopol, on today’s Bulgarian Black Sea coast.

The fresh water inside newly uncovered structure of the holy well, or ayazmo, of the 4th – 5th century AD Early Christian monastery on Bulgaria’s St. Ivan Island, Photo: Video grab from bTV

“My excitement is always great when I arrive here because of the discovery that we made [10 years ago of the St. John the Baptist relics],” Popkonstantinov has told bTV in a report on the 2020 digs on the island.

“What we have [unearthed] before us here is the monastery ayazmo constructed 1,500 years ago, and built on top of the foundations of the holy spring of the temple of the deity Apollo [which preceded it,” the lead archaeologist explains.

He points out that his team has reached the “respectable” depth of 4.7 meters, but still has not reached the beginning of the holy well, or ayazmo.

Popkonstantinov points out that, in addition to digging down the holy well of what once was an Ancient Greek temple of the sun god Apollo and then became an Early Christian monastery in the 4^th century AD to harbor holy relics of St. John the Baptist, his team has also excavated both the western and the eastern facades of the ayazmo.

“This sacred spring was closely connected with the deity Apollo. We now have plentiful archaeological facts showing that this place had [civilized human] life 2,600 years ago,” the archaeologist says in a video report by Darik Burgas.

The nearby St. Cyricus Island, which is now technically a peninsula linked to the Bulgarian mainland, but was also part of ancient Apollonia Pontica, as it is part of today’s town of Sozopol, is known to also have had a temple of Apollo, and to have also been the site of the Colossus of Apollonia Pontica, a large, 13-meter-tall bronze statue of Ancient Greek god Apollo towering in the harbor of the Greek colony for four centuries before it was seized by the Romans and taken to Rome.

Lead archaeologist Kazimir Popkonstantinov is seen here showing the inside of the holy well, or ayazmo, structure of the 4th – 5th century AD Early Christian monastery on the St. Ivan Island off the coast of Bulgaria’s Black Sea town of Sozopol. Photo: Video grab from bTV

The discovery site of the holy well, or ayazmo, structure of the 4th – 5th century AD Early Christian monastery on the St. Ivan Island off the coast of Bulgaria’s Black Sea town of Sozopol. Photo: Video grab from Darik Burgas

Speaking about his 2020 excavations, Popkonstantinov reminds that back in 2018 at the site where now the holy well on the St. Ivan Island has just been unearthed, his team discovered a 3^rd century BC decree of the assembly of Apollonia Pontica testifying to the cordial ties the city had with Heraclea Pontica, another Ancient Greek colony but located in today’s Turkey,

“This year [the excavations] have been dedicated to clarifying the construction and functional history, so to say, of a very important structure of the [Early Christian] monastery, the ayazmo, i.e. the structure that contained its water,” explains Assoc. Prof. Rosina Kostova, who is deputy head of the archaeological team and chief of the Archaeology Department at Veliko Tarnovo University “St. Cyril and St. Methodius”.

“The [structure] was likely connected with the idea of the holy water which heals and protects. Many monasteries in the history of Orthodox [Christianity] here in the Balkans are connected with such water springs calls ayazmos. This one here is truly impressive in terms of architecture,” she adds.

Kostova has described the Early Christian monastery on the St. Ivan Island off Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast as “truly special” not only because it contained relics of St. John the Baptist but also because of its longevity as it was in use for more than 12 centuries.

“This monastery is truly special because it was a living convent without interruption from the end of the 4^th century AD until the first quarter of the 17^th century, and it has a very rich documented history, which is also rare for monasteries in Bulgaria,” the archaeologist explains.

Previously, lead archaeologist Kazimir Popkonstantinov has said that the structure of the holy well, or ayazmo, of the Early Christian monastery on St. Ivan Island is nearly 7 meters wide, and 7.8 meters long. Its walls are about 1.1 meters wide, and are made of stones with brick arcs.

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The ruins of the 4th – 5th century AD Early Christian monastery on St. Ivan Island off the coast of Bulgaria’s Black Sea town of Sozopol. Photo: Video grab from bTV

The St. Ivan Island off the coast of Bulgaria’s Black Sea town of Sozopol towers at 33 meters above sea level. Photo: Video grab from bTV

Prof. Popkonstantinov is seen here showing the makeshift scaffolds his team has devised to protect the surviving 5th century ruins from collapsing in the face of lack of government funding for their conservation. Photo: Video grab from bTV

This video from Darik Burgas from September 2020 shows this years excavations on the St. Ivan Island.

Unfortunately, the Bulgarian government has not provided sufficient funding for the conservation and restoration of the partially surviving buildings of the Early Christian monastery on St. Ivan Island in the Black Sea near Sozopol.

Some of the archaeological structures have survived up to a height of 4 meters. The lack of funding has led the archaeologists to try to save them with whatever they can, including by using wooden scaffolds and tiles.

Popkonstantinov himself is warning that many of the surviving ancient walls might collapse at any given moment, which would be “dreadful” if any visitors happen to be around at that time. He has called upon the Bulgarian authorities to provide the badly needed funding to conserve the site, which is going to warrant many years of future archaeological exploration for its secrets to be revealed.

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Ivan Dikov, the founder of ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com, is the author of the book Ugly Bargain: How the European Union and Bulgaria’s Post-Communist Oligarchy Fit Together, among other books.

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Background Infonotes:

A 2012 National Geographic documentary featuring the discovery of the St. John the Baptist relics in Bulgaria’s Sozopol can be seen here (in English and here in Bulgarian).

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Relevant Books on Amazon.com:

The Greeks Overseas: The Early Colonies and Trade

Colony and Mother City in Ancient Greece

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The post Archaeologists Find Holy Well of Early Christian Monastery on Top of 2,500-Year-Old Apollo Temple on Bulgaria’s St. Ivan Island appeared first on Archaeology in Bulgaria. and Beyond.

Artifacts from the 6th and 5th millenium BC found in the prehistoric and virtually unknown to the public Burgas Settlement Mound have been showcased for the first time in an exhition of the Burgas Regional Museum of History. Photo: Burgas Regional Museum of History

The oldest settlement in today’s Black Sea city of Burgas in Southeast Bulgaria – today a prehistoric settlement mound – which existed in the Late Neolithic (New Stone Age) and throughout the entire Chalcolithic (Copper Age) period, has been presented for the first time to the public in a special exhibition.

The Burgas Settlement Mound is the oldest human settlement on the territory of the Black Sea city of Burgas. It is far less known publicly compared with the prehistoric heritage of the Black Sea city of Varna in Northeast Bulgaria (Burgas and Varna being the two largest cities on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast).

The latter is world famous for the 7,000-year-old Varna Chalcolithic Necropolis and the Varna Gold Treasure, better known as the oldest gold treasure in the world (it is on par with several other prehistoric gold treasures and artifacts (check out the article “Which Is the World’s Oldest Gold Treasure?” found throughout Bulgaria but is certainly the largest, most diverse, and most impressive one.)

The prehistoric settlement mound in the southern Black Sea city of Burgas dates back to the end of the 6^th millennium BC, the Late Chalcolithic (New Stone Age), seemingly part of the wider prehistoric civilization of the Danube – Black Sea region, Europe’s first civilization referred to by some Western scholars as “Old Europe“.

It was also inhibited during the entire 5^th millennium BC, i.e. the Chalcolithic (Aeneolithic, Copper Age), informs the Burgas Regional Museum of History, which has organized the exhibition.

The first ever archaeological excavations of the Burgas Settlement Mound were carried out in 2008 – 2009, and were led by archaeologist Assist. Prof. Miroslav Klasnakov.

“The field research of the [prehistoric] archaeological layer, which is 2.7 meters thick, and the analysis of the discovered materials demonstrate that the mound contains [remains] from two prehistoric ages, the Neolithic and the Chalcolithic, each one of which with several inhabitance levels,” the Burgas Regional Museum of History explains.

It adds that most of discovered prehistoric dwellings, structures, and artifacts within the settlement mound were destroyed by strong fires.

“The excellent restoration of artifacts and vessels is giving the public the opportunity to enjoy the wealth of shapes and decorations, and to enrich its understanding of the lifestyle and culture of the earliest agrarian and cattle-breeding tribes that used to inhabit the territory of today’s city of Burgas,” states the Burgas Museum of History.

The finds from the 7,000-year-old Burgas Settlement Mound are on display at the Archaeology Museum of the Burgas Regional Museum of History, in the “Prehistory and Ancient Black Sea Sailing” Halll. The exhibition will be open for visitors from March 12 until April 12, 2021.

Prehistoric pottery vessels from the Neolithic and Chalcolithic Burgas Settlement Mound on display in the exhibition. Photo: Burgas Regional Museum of History

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The post 7,000-Year-Old Settlement Mound in Bulgaria’s Black Sea City Burgas Presented for the First Time in Exhibition appeared first on Archaeology in Bulgaria. and Beyond.

The newsly discovered slab fragment from ca. 500 BC with marching hoplites, the Ancient Greek citizen warriors who formed the dreadful phalanx formation, from the sacred zone with two Apollo temples on the St. Cyricus Island in Bulgaria’s Black Sea town of Sozopol. Photo: National Institute and Museum of Archaeology

A 2,500-year-old slab, a relief depicting marching Ancient Greek warriors, or hoplites, has been discovered among other finds in the recent archaeological excavations of two temples of ancient god Apollo on the St. Cyricus Island, today a peninsula, in the Bulgarian Black Sea town of Sozopol.

The newly discovered slab with Ancient Greek warriors, or hoplites, appears to a piece of a larger depiction, other parts of which were discovered during digs in 2018 and 2019 in the zone of the two temples of deity Apollo Iatros (“The Healer”) – one from the Late Archaic period and one from the Early Classical period of Ancient Greece – on the St. Cyricus Island in Bulgaria’s Sozopol.

The St. Cyricus Island, more precisely named Sts. Quiricus and Julietta Island, is rich in archaeological structures from the dawn of the settlement of Sozopol, which emerged as the Ancient Greek colony of Apollonia Pontica on the Western Black Sea coast in the 6^th century BC.

The St. Cyricus Island (the Sts. Quiricus and Julietta Island) is believed to have been the site of the Colossus of Apollonia Pontica, a large, 13-meter-tall bronze statue of Ancient Greek god Apollo towering in the harbor of the Greek colony for four centuries before it was seized by the Romans and taken to Rome. The Colossus of Apollonia Pontica has been likened to the taller and far more famous Colossus of Rhodes.

Among the many archaeological wonders of Bulgaria’s Sozopol is also the 2010 discovery of relics of St. John the Baptist in an Early Christian monastery on the nearby island of St. Ivan (St. John), whose presence has been construed as a counterbalance to the religious significance of the ancient city in the pagan period.

In the fall of 2020, the Bulgarian government and the French Ambassdor to Bulgaria announced an initiative to turn the St. Cyricus Island in Sozopol into a museum of archaeology with aid from France, the OAE, and the Louvre Museum in Paris.

The newsly discovered slab fragment from ca. 500 BC with marching hoplites, the Ancient Greek citizen warriors who formed the dreadful phalanx formation, from the sacred zone with two Apollo temples on the St. Cyricus Island in Bulgaria’s Black Sea town of Sozopol, as displayed in the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition. Photo: ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com

A sketch showing the likely full relief of Ancient Greek hoplite warriors from Sozopol, of which the newly discovered fragment is a part. Photo: Archaeologist Margarit Damyanov, 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition poster

A fragment from a slab with marching Ancient Greek warriors from the collection of the Louvre Museum in Paris.

A drawing depicting hoplites, or Ancient Greek warriors. Image: Wikipedia

The relief slab depicting marching Ancient Greek warriors from the Apollo temples site in Sozopol was discovered during last year’s archaeological excavations. It dates back to ca. 500 BC.

It has been presented in the “Bulgarian Archaeology 2020” annual exhibition at the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia, which was opened in February 2021. It shows the marching hoplites with raised helmets, and holding spears.

The 2020 archaeological excavations on the St. Cyricus island in Sozopol focused on further research of the temenos, i.e. a sacred ground surrounding an ancient temple, which harbors the ruins of two temples of ancient god Apollo, one from the Late Archaic period of Ancient Greece (525 BC – 500 BC), and another from the Early Classical period of Ancient Greece (490 BC – 470 BC).

In the city of Apollonia Pontica, Apollo was worshipped with the nickname Iatros, i.e. “healer”.

The site was excavated by archaeologists Krastina Panayotova and Margarit Damyanov from the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia, and Daniela Stoyanova from Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”.

More specifically, the excavation spot where the archaeological team found the newly discovered relief with marching Ancient Greek hoplites is located before the southeast façade of the largest modern-era building on the St. Cyricus Island, the so called Fishing School.

The Fishing School was built in the 1920s. In reality, it was a secret school for the training of Bulgarian naval officers in the wake of World War I as Bulgaria was prohibited from having a navy under the 1919 Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine, part of the Versailles Treaty between the Entente and the Central Powers.

“[In 2020,] we continued the research of the area between the [Archaic Apollo] temple and the staircase of the Fishing School. Its foundations are dug into a rich archaeological layer connected with the Archaic Ancient Greek settlement from the first half and the middle of the 6^th century BC,” the archaeological team informs in the official poster for the site in the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology exhibition.

In the said layer, the archaeologists found fragments from two figural fragrance vessels and terracotta items, two bronze arrow tips, and other artifacts.

“Above it there is a thick layer of limestone debris used for leveling at some point after the construction of the [Archaic] temple [of Apollo],” the archaeologists explain.

It was in that upper layer that they have discovered an arrow coin, a fragmented black-figure skyphos (a two-handed deep wine cup), and two more fragments from ceramic slabs with relief decoration depicting marching Ancient Greek warriors.

“[The newly found fragments of the slab with Ancient Greek hoplites] complement the ones [we] discovered in 2018 and 2019. They already number 20, a large part of which belong to the same scene,” archaeological team explains.

The archaeologists add that the newly found artifacts, including fragments from construction pottery from the second half of the 6^th century BC, demonstrate “the existence of other structures, some of which predate the construction of the temple” of Apollo from the Archaic period on the St. Cyricus Island in Bulgaria’s Sozopol.

The excavation site of the temenos, or sacred zone, of the two Apollo temples from the 6th-5th century BC, southeast of the 1920s Fishing School building on the St. Cyricus Island, today a peninsula, in Bulgaria’s Sozopol. Photo: Archaeologist Margarit Damyanov, 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition poster

The ruins of the Apollo temple on St. Cyricus Island from the Late Archaic period of Ancient Greece (525 BC – 500 BC). Photo: Archaeologist Margarit Damyanov, 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition poster

The ruins of the Apollo temple from the Early Classical period of Ancient Greece on St. Cyricus Island in Bulgaria’s Sozopol, with the antefix with palmette visible in the middle. Photo: Archaeologist Margarit Damyanov, 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition poster

“[We] have exposed the outer face of [the temple’s] western wall [which is] made up of quadrae of porous limestone and with a maximum preserved height of 1.5 meters,” the researchers inform.

They also reveal they have finished excavating another Apollo temple in the same temenos, or sacred zone, on the small Black Sea Island, part of the Ancient Greek city of Apollonia Pontica in today’s Southeast Bulgaria.

That is a temple from the Early Classical period of Ancient Greece (490 BC – 470 BC), which was located right next to the Archaic temple.

“[We] have completed the research of the temple from the Early Classical Period located right to the east of the Late Archaic temple. The preserved height of the walls, including one row from the superstructure, is 1.1 meters,” the archaeologists say.

They have discovered an antefix (an ornament at the eaves of a classical building concealing the ends of the joint tiles of the roof) from the third quarter of the 6^th century BC and an older wall from crushed stones incorporated into the Classical Apollo temple are deemed as testimony to the existence of earlier structures.

Artifacts found in the latest excavations of this slightly younger temple of Apollo on the St. Cyrucus Island in Bulgaria’s Sozopol including two more bronze arrow tips and fragments from three terracotta items.

Items 11-16, inclduing the slab with marching Ancient Greek hoplites (15), are artifacts from the latest excavations on the St. Cyricus Island in Sozopol included in the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology exhibition at the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia. Photo: ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com

A figural vessel for incenses (“a kore with a dove”) from the latest excavations on the St. Cyricus Island in Sozopol included in the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology exhibition at the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia. Photo: ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com

A fragment from a black-figure skyphos (wine cup) from the latest excavations on the St. Cyricus Island in Sozopol included in the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology exhibition at the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia. Photo: ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com

Bronze arrow tips (13) and a bronze arrow coin (14) from the latest excavations on the St. Cyricus Island in Sozopol included in the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology exhibition at the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia. Photo: ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com

Bronze arrow tips (13) and a bronze arrow-coin (14) from the latest excavations on the St. Cyricus Island in Sozopol included in the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology exhibition at the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia. Photo: ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com

An antefix (an ornament at the eaves of a classical building concealing the ends of the joint tiles of the roof) with palmette from the third quarter of the 6th century BC, from the latest excavations on the St. Cyricus Island in Sozopol included in the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology exhibition at the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia. Photo: ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com

The bronze arrow tips and arrow-coin, and the antefix (an ornament at the eaves of a classical building concealing the ends of the joint tiles of the roof) with palmette from the third quarter of the 6th century BC, from the latest excavations on the St. Cyricus Island in Sozopol included in the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology exhibition at the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia. Photo: ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com

The archaeologists have discovered that both temples of Apollo on the St. Cyricus Island in Sozopol, the one from the Late Archaic period and the one from the Early Classical period of Ancient Greece, had no peripteros, i.e. colonnades on all four sides of their naos.

Instead, each of these Apollo temples probably had two columns in antas (antae), i.e. one post on either side of their respective entrances.

The newly found slab with Ancient Greek warriors, or hoplites, as the citizen-warriors of the Ancient Greek city-states were known, from the Black Sea town of Sozopol is deemed one of the most intriguing discoveries presented in the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology exhibition.

Learn more about the ancient and medieval history of Bulgaria’s Black Sea city of Sozopol in the Background Infonotes below!

A 2011 collage showing what the Colossus of Apollonia might have looked like on the St. Cyricus Island (today a peninsula) in Bulgaria’s Sozopol. Photo: e-vestnik

The location of the St. Cyricus Island, now a peninsula connected with the mainland, to the west of Sozopol’s Old Town. Map: Google Maps

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Also check out these stories about Sozopol’s rich archaeological heritage:

Bulgaria’s Sozopol to Restore Ancient Statue of Apollo, ‘Colossus of Apollonia Pontica’, Not Unlike Greece’s Plans to Rebuild Colossus of Rhodes

Archaeologists Find Ceramic Sarcophagus in Necropolis of Ancient Greek Polis Apollonia Pontica in Bulgaria’s Sozopol

Skeletons Found in Early Christian Tomb on St. Ivan Island off Bulgaria’s Sozopol Belonged to Syrian Monks Who Brought St. John the Baptist’s Relics

Archaeologists Find 2,600-Year-Old ‘Arrow Coins’ near Apollo Temple in Ancient Apollonia Pontica in Bulgaria’s Sozopol

Bulgarian, French Archaeologists Find Unique Apollo Roof Tiles, Ancient Greek Funerals near Sozopol

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Ivan Dikov, the founder of ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com, is the author of the book Ugly Bargain: How the European Union and Bulgaria’s Post-Communist Oligarchy Fit Together, among other books.

***

Background Infonotes:

A 2012 National Geographic documentary featuring the discovery of the St. John the Baptist relics in Bulgaria’s Sozopol can be seen here (in English and here in Bulgarian).

****************************************************************************

Support ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com on Patreon

with $1 per Month!

Become a Patron Now!

Make One-time Donation via Paypal!

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The post Slab with Marching Ancient Greek Warriors Discovered at Apollo Temples on Ancient Black Sea Island in Bulgaria’s Sozopol appeared first on Archaeology in Bulgaria. and Beyond.

Prehistoric vessels, tools, and a gold bead from ca. 6,500 BC discovered in the Hidden Settlement Mound near Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast of Pomorie, which have been included in the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition. A total of 13 vessels are shown here, out of a collective find of 21. The intriguing headless four-legged zoomorphic vessel is visible in the middle. Photo: National Institute and Museum of Archaeology

A full set of 21 prehistoric pottery vessels, including a remarkable zoomorphic vessel, and a gold bead which is among the oldest gold items in the world, have been discovered in a Chalcolithic (Aeneolithic, Copper Age) settlement mound from the middle of the 5^th millennium BC located close to the Black Sea coast and the towns of Poroy and Pomorie in Southeast Bulgaria.

The 6,500-year-old artifacts from the prehistoric homes at Poroy have been presented for the first time in the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition at the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia. The exhibition, which was opened in February 2021, is an annual event showcasing the top archaeological discoveries in Bulgaria from the preceding year.

In 2020, the “Skritata” (meaning “Hidden”) Settlement Mound near the town of Poroy and the Poroy Water Reservoir, Pomorie Municipality, Burgas District, in Southeast Bulgaria was excavated for the third time and third consecutive archaeological season.

The site is also very close to the ancient Black Sea resort town of Nessebar, and the huge Sunny Beach summer Black Sea resort.

Since the first digs there in 2018, the impressive prehistoric site has been researched by a team led by archaeologist Margarita Popova from the National Museum of History in Sofia.

The intriguing headless four-legged zoomorpic vessel found with the other vessels in the Poroy Settlement Mound, as exhibited in the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition. Photo: ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com

The 2020 excavations at the Copper Age settlement mound near the Black Sea town of Pomorie were funded by the Bulgarian Ministry of Culture.

The prehistoric settlement site stands about 12 kilometers away from today’s Black Sea coast. The settlement mound has been targeted by treasure hunting looters, including with massive machines such as bulldozers or tractors. Due to local legends, the treasure hunters may possibly have mistaken the site for a burial mound from the much later period of Ancient Thrace which could contain large amounts of elaborate gold artifacts.

“The life of the settlement mound ended at [archaeological] level No. 1 from the Middle Copper Age, the [prehistoric] Kodzhadermen – Gumelnitsa – Karanovo Culture VI (4,530 – 4,448 BC),” the archaeological team informs in the official catalog and poster for the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition.

The researchers explain that the 6,500-year-old settlement was not destroyed in a fire although some of its dwelling were burned down. In the excavations, they have found its structures in a layer with yellow clay and scattered rocks.

The most impressive discovery from the latest digs in “Hidden” Settlement Mound from the Copper Age near Bulgaria’s Pomorie has been a collective find of 21 rather well preserved ceramic vessels, and some additional vessels, vessel fragments, and other artifacts, including a tiny gold bead. These have been found in “Building No. 1” of the Chalcolithic site.

The most interesting of the pottery vessels in question is a zoomorphic vessel shaped as a headless four-legged animal body with its opening at its neck.

“Besides the various pottery vessels, [we have] also found anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figurines, diverse parts of adornments as well as bone, stone, and flint tools,” the archaeological team reveals.

Diverse pottery vessels from the middle of the 5th millenium BC have been found in the Poroy Settlement Mound, as displayed here in the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition. Photo: ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com

The 2020 excavations of the 6,500-year-old Copper Age (Chalcolithic) settlement mound near the Bulgarian Black Sea resort town of Pomorie explored two buildings from what is referred to as “Level 2” of the mound.

The prehistoric homes in question were built of wooden poles and wattle plastered with clay. They were burned down. A prehistoric practice in which the very home owners deliberately burned down their dwellings, perhaps as a sacrificial offering, is known from other prehistoric Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlements found in Bulgaria.

This small gold bead from ca. 6,500 BC, which has been found in the Poroy Settlement Mound near Bulgaria’s Pomorie, as displayed here in the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition, is certainly among the oldest gold artifacts in the world. Photo: ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com

A long flint blade (4) and bone tools, probably awls (3) from the Poroy Settlement Mound, as displayed in the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition. Photo: ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com

The home called “Building No. 1” had on its floor the set of 21 pottery vessels differing in shape, size, and decoration, including the intact zoomorphic headless four-legged vessel mentioned above.

The dwelling in question also yielded a set of 13 broken flint blades, a flint blade that is 18.6 centimeters long; and 3 bone tools, most probably awls, the largest of which is 19.4 centimeters long.

On the floor in Building No. 2 of the 5^th millennium BC settlement near Bulgaria’s Pomorie, the researchers found a large amount of charred grain, including einkorn wheat (Triticum monococum L.), emmer wheat (Triticum aestivo/durum L.), and barley (Hordium vulgare ssp. Vulgare L.).

The archaeological site of the 6,500-year-old prehistoric settlement near Bulgaria’s Pomorie and the town of Poroy and the Poroy Water Reservoir stands on a steep hill on the left bank of a small river, a tributary of another small river flowing into the Black Sea.

An aearial shot of the “Hidden” / Poroy Settlement Mound, an ellipse-shaped hill, 12 kilometers away from the Black Sea coast, with the Poroy Water Reservoir barely visible in the background. Photo: Archaeological Team, official poster for the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition

A vertical “incision” showing Building No. 1 in the prehistoric settlement. Photo: Archaeological Team, official poster for the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition

The collective find of the set of pottery vessels as found in situ on the floor of Building No. 1 in the prehistoric settlement. Photo: Archaeological Team, official poster for the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition

Charred beams from the floor of Building No. 2 of the prehistoric settlement. Photo: Archaeological Team, official poster for the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition

Location of the prehistoric Poroy Settlement Mound in the hinterland of some of Bulgaria’s most famous Black Sea resorts such as Pomorie, Nessebar, and Sunny Beach. Map: Google Maps

The mound has an elliptical shape. It is 77 meters wide, 102 meters long, and about 10 meters tall.

The mound was registered for the first time in 2007, and was visited by archaeologists again in 2013. Numerous pits and trenches dug up by treasure hunters trying to loot the site have been found.

The first full-fledged excavations of the Chalcolithic settlement mound in 2018 also revealed a huge ditch dug up by treasure hunters on its top, from the northwest to the south east, which was dug up with machines.

The trench excavated by the looters was 45 meters long, 7 – 15 meters wide, and 2.5 – 4.5 meters deep.

Local residents from Poroy tell the story of how some 50 years ago the site was frequented by hunters due to the large number of fox dwellings there. In a small pile of soil dug up by foxes, several ancient gold coins were found. This led to an avalanche of legends that the mound, which is actually preshitoric, in fact contained the fabulously rich grave of an Ancient Thracian princess with a golden loom and golden horse chariot.

Two men from the town of Kableshkovo were sentenced decades ago to 2-3 years in prison for plowing the top of the mound with a tractor.

Nonetheless, the 5^th millennium BC Copper Age settlement mound near Pomorie, which yielded a full set of prehistoric vessels in the latest excavations, remains a target for looters to this day.

The Poroy Settlement Mound appears as one more site from the wider sophisticated prehistoric civilization of the Danube – Black Sea region. Europe’s first civilization ever goes back the 6^th – 5^th millennium BC (Neolithic (New Stone Age) and Chalcolithic (Aeneolithic, Copper Age)), and is referred to by some Western scholars as “Old Europe”.

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The post 6,500-Year-Old Full Set of Vessels, Including Zoomorphic One, Gold Bead from World’s Oldest Found in Prehistoric Settlement Mound near Bulgaria’s Pomorie appeared first on Archaeology in Bulgaria. and Beyond.

The 7,000-year-old zoomorphic ritual table decorated with a “horned animal”, perhaps a ram, found near Bulgaria’s Tsonevo and Dalgopol, as displayed in the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition at the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia. Photo: ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com

An archaeological site containing structures from both the Neolithic, with a “horned animal” ritual table as especially intriguing find, and the time of the First Bulgarian Empire in the Early Middle Ages, has been discovered by chance near the Black Sea city of Varna in Northeast Bulgaria during the construction of an overhead power line.

The precise location of the prehistoric and medieval discoveries is near the town of Tsonevo, Dalgopol Municipality, Varna District, to the southwest of the city of Varna, in the valley of the Kamchiya River, the largest river in Bulgaria to flow directly into the Black Sea (rather than by way of the Danube River).

As construction workers stumbled upon archaeological structures during the building of a new overhead power line between the Black Sea cities of Burgas and Varna in Eastern Bulgaria, archaeologists from the Varna Museum of Archaeology (home of the world’s oldest and largest prehistoric gold treasure) were called up to carry out rescue excavations.

The results from the digs near Tsonevo and Dalgopol in Bulgaria’s Varna District have been presented in the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition, with the 7,000-year-old prehistoric ritual table with decorated with a “horned animal” being one of the most intriguing exhibits.

The annual exhibition at the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia, which was opened in February 2021, traditionally presents the most interesting archaeological discoveries made in Bulgaria over the preceding year.

The newly found prehistoric and medieval archaeological site near Tsonevo and Dalgopol was excavated by archaeologists Alexander Manev and Vladimir Slavchev from the Varna Museum of Archaeology (Varna Regional Museum of History).

The newly discovered archaeological structures from both the Neolithic (New Stone Age) and the Early Middle Ages had been previously unknown.

The rescue archaeological excavations conducted have led to the discovery of a settlement from the Early Middle Ages, more specifically from 9^th – 10^th century, i.e. the height of the First Bulgarian Empire (632/680 – 1018 AD), the archaeological team informs in the official catalog and poster for the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition.

The archaeologists have also found that the same site was inhabited in the Late Neolithic (New Stone Age) period, more precisely at the end of the 6^th millennium BC (in the centuries before 5,000 BC).

The 7,000-year-old zoomorphic ritual table decorated with a “horned animal”, perhaps a ram, found near Bulgaria’s Tsonevo and Dalgopol, at the time of its discovery. Photo: Archaeological Team via Paralel43

“From the Late Neolithic [we] have found two pits containing an abundance of fragmented ceramic materials, flint artifacts, animal bones, and pieces from charred clay plaster,” the archaeologists reveal.

They point out that the structures in question were probably dug up into the periphery of a prehistoric Neolithic settlement located near the meanders of the Kamchiya River.

In their words, judging by the appearance and condition of the discovered finds, the pits were probably used to dispose of household waste and/or construction refuse.

“In one of the pits [we] have found an almost fully intact “cult table” (i.e. ritual table – editor’s note) with engraved decoration. One of its corners is shaped like a horned animal head,” the archaeological team explains.

The official account from the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition does not specify the species of the horned animal whose head decorates one of the corners of the prehistoric zoomorphic ritual table.

However, in an earlier interview for a local news media, Parallel 43, archaeologist Vladimir Slavchev had mentioned it as a ram head. After its presentation at the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia, the 7,000-year-old “horned animal head” ritual table will become part of the permanent collection of the Varna Museum of Archaeology.

The structures from the Late Neolithic settlement near Bulgaria’s Tsonevo and Dalgopol. Photo: Archaeological Team, official poster for the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition, also via Paralel43

The 7,000-year-old zoomorphic ritual table decorated with a “horned animal”, perhaps a ram, and flint blades and scrapers found near Bulgaria’s Tsonevo and Dalgopol, as displayed in the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition at the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia. Photo: ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com

Flint blades and scrapers found in the Late Neolithic settlement near Bulgaria’s Tsonevo and Dalgopol, as displayed in the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition at the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia. Photo: ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com

“The excavated [Neolithic] structures are dated to the beginning phases of the Usoe Culture which inhabited the valley of the Kamchiya River at the end of the 6^th millennium BC,” the archaeological team explains further.

The Usoe Culture was discovered and researched decades ago by local archaeologist Dimitar Zlatarski of the Dalgapol Museum of History, and by Prof. Henrieta Todorova.

The Usoe Culture was part of the wider sophisticated prehistoric civilization of the Danube – Black Sea region. Europe’s first civilization ever goes back the 6^th – 5^th millennium BC (Neolithic (New Stone Age) and Chalcolithic (Aeneolithic, Copper Age)), and is referred to by some Western scholars as “Old Europe”.

The discovery of the Neolithic site with the prehistoric zoomorphic ritual table near Tsonevo and Dalgopol is the first time in over 40 years in which archaeologists have found a new, previously unknown Neolithic site in the area.

The rescue excavations near Tsonevo and Dalgopol in Northeast Bulgaria, Varna District, have also led to the discovery of structures from a previously unknown settlement from the First Bulgarian Empire in the 9^th – 10^th century.

“At the time of the First Bulgarian Empire, the same site was occupied by a settlement. From it, [we] have excavated two dugout dwellings with a rectangular shape,” the archaeological team say.

The early medieval Ancient Bulgar dugouts in question are about 4 meters long and 3.5 meters wide each.

“In both of them, we have found a stone kiln in one of their corners. In one of the dugout dwellings, there is also a hearth in a corner adjacent to that of the respective kiln,” the archaeologists inform.

“Amid the ruins filled up with soil, [we] have found numerous pottery fragments and household artifacts. What stands out among those are the large number of identical awls made of animal bones,” they add.

The early medieval structures near Bulgaria’s Tsonevo and Dalgopol. Photo: Archaeological Team, via Paralel43

The early medieval structures near Bulgaria’s Tsonevo and Dalgopol. Photo: Archaeological Team, official poster for the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition

Location of the Late Neolithic / early medieval archaeological site discovered in rescue digs near Tsonevo and Dalgopol in Bulgaria’s Varna District, close to the Black Sea coast, in the valley of the Kamchiya River. Map: Google Maps

A map of the drainage basin of the Kamchiya River, the largest river in Bulgaria to flow directly into the Black Sea (and not as a Danube tributary), which in the Neolithic (New Stone Age) was inhabited by the Usoe Culture. Map: Space Research and Technologies Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

In his prior interview, archaeologist Vladimr Slavchev has pointed out that no such structures had been discovered in the region before.

Other artifacts from the newly found dugouts from the time of the First Bulgarian Empire southwest of Varna include spindle whorls, an iron arrow tip, and pottery fragments.

Not unlike the newly found archaeological site near Bulgaria’s Tsonevo and Dalgopol in the Varna District, settlements with dugouts from the time of the First Bulgarian Empire were discovered in several locations throughout Northern Bulgaria in 2020: in Brestnitsa and Debnevo in Lovech District; and in Gradishte and Belogradets in Shumen District.

Also check out these other stories about recent prehistory discoveries in Bulgaria:

‘Earliest Dispersal of Modern Humans’ in Eurasia’s Mid-Latitudes, Regular Mixing with Neanderthals Revealed by 46,000-Year-Old Remains from Bulgaria’s Bacho Kiro Cave

6,500-Year-Old Full Set of Vessels, Including Zoomorphic One, Gold Bead from World’s Oldest Found in Prehistoric Settlement Mound near Bulgaria’s Pomorie

3,000-Year-Old Bird-Shaped Vessel Placed in Burial Urn Found in Bulgaria’s Baley in Crucial Thracian Bronze Age Necropolis

Also check out these other stories about recent discoveries of dugout settlements from the time of the First Bulgarian Empire:

Medieval Metallurgical Center at Dugout Settlement from Height of First Bulgarian Empire Discovered in Northwest Bulgaria

Ancient Bulgar Strap Decorations, Dugouts from Medieval Bulgarian Empire Found in Debnevo Fortress near Troyan

300-Meter-Long Wooden Passage between Inner City, Citadel Gates Discovered in Capital of First Bulgarian Empire Pliska

Third Satellite Town of Early Medieval Bulgarian Empire’s Capital Pliska Found during Digs for Turkish Stream Natural Gas Pipeline

80 Newly Found Dugouts Offer Glimpse into 9th Century Rural Life in First Bulgarian Empire

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The post 7,000-Year-Old Ritual Table with ‘Horned Animal’, First Bulgarian Empire Settlement Found near Varna in Rescue Digs appeared first on Archaeology in Bulgaria. and Beyond.

Nearly 7,000-year-old flint cores and manufacturing waste from the newly discovered Early Copper Age flint production workshop near Belogradets, Varna District, in Northeast Bulgaria, as showcased in the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition at the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia. Photo: ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com

A prehistoric workshop, or “manufacturing center”, for the production of flint tools going back to ca. 5,000 BC has been discovered by archaeologists near the town of Belogradets, Varna District, in Northeast Bulgaria, in rescue excavations for the construction of the Turkish Stream / Balkan Stream natural gas transit pipeline.

Finds from the newly discovered Early Chalcolithic (Aeneolithic, Copper Age) flint production center from the beginning of the 5^th millennium BC have been presented in the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition.

The annual exhibition at the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia, which was opened in February 2021, traditionally showcases to the public the most interesting archaeological discoveries made in Bulgaria during the preceding year.

More specifically, the archaeological team points out that the newly discovered flint processing center near Belogradets dates back to the time boundary between the transition period between the Late Neolithic (New Stone Age) and the Early Chalcolithic (Copper Age), and the beginning proper of the latter.

The location of the nearly 7,000-year-old Early Copper Age flint workshop near Belogradets in Northeast Bulgaria is about 50 kilometers inland from the Black Sea coast, and from the Black Sea city of Varna, which is home of the world’s oldest and largest prehistoric gold treasure.

The newly discovered workshop for the manufacturing of flint tools near Belogradets appears to be a part of the wider sophisticated prehistoric civilization of the Danube – Black Sea region.

What was Europe’s first civilization ever goes back the 6^th – 5^th millennium BC (the Neolithic (New Stone Age) and Chalcolithic (Aeneolithic, Copper Age)), and is referred to by some Western scholars as “Old Europe”.

Another similar Copper Age production center for flint artifacts was discovered back in 2015, also in Northeast Bulgaria, in the town of Kamenovo, Kubrat Municipality, Razgrad District, about 80 kilometers northwest of the newly discovered archaeological site in Belogradets.

Subsequent research in the Kamenovo flint workshop, which is dated ca. 4,500 BC, has found the site had manufactory production, and also led to the discovery of intriguing Chalcolithic (Copper Age) burials, including that of a man holding a stone ax scepter.

Nearly 7,000-year-old flint cores and manufacturing waste (11) and flint end-scrapers (12) from the newly discovered Early Copper Age flint production workshop near Belogradets, Varna District, in Northeast Bulgaria, as showcased in the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition at the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia. Photo: ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com

The newly found prehistoric center for flint processing from the beginning of the 5^th millennium BC is located on the Stana Plateau near the town of Belogradets, Vetrino Municipality, Varna District, in Northeast Bulgaria, inland from the Black Sea coast.

It has been excavated by a team of archaeologists led by Victoria Petrova from the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia, and including Evgeniya Naydenova from the Oryahovo Museum of History, Stanimira Taneva from the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia, Victoria Haleva, Stoyanka Radeva, Todor Valchev from the Yambol Regional Museum of History, Lyubomir Todorov, and Vladimir Vasilev.

A crucial prerequisite for the operation of the nearly 7,000-year-old flint production center near Bulgaria’s Belogradets appears to be the abundance of flint deposits in the respective region of Northeast Bulgaria, the archaeological team explains in the official catalog and poster for the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition.

The archaeologists point out that the fling concretions found on the surface of the archaeological site belong to the flint type that is typical of the wider Ludogorie region (named after a larger plateau in today’s Northeast Bulgaria, right to the northwest of the Stana Plateau where the archaeological site has been found.) They note that the flint found in that particular place might have been extracted from the very plateau on which the workshop near Belogradets is located.

Nearly 7,000-year-old flint end-scrapers from the newly discovered Early Copper Age flint production workshop near Belogradets, Varna District, in Northeast Bulgaria, as showcased in the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition at the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia. Photo: ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com

The archaeologists have discovered flint material in different stages of processing both inside several Early Chalcolithic pits and on their surface.

“[We] have researched pits dating to the transition period from the Late Neolithic to the Early Chalcolithic or the beginning of the Early Chalcolithic,” the archaeological team explains.

“Part of these pits are connected with the initial processing of flint materials and represent almost all stages of the production process for the manufacturing of flint tools,” the team adds.

The researchers reveal further that they have come across scattered flint concretions with traces of processing as well as flint cores and splits remaining from the initial processing around the prehistoric pits in question.

“[We] have also found flint artifacts inside the pits themselves. Here too the cores are [destined] mostly for splits, and there are specimens of up to 5 centimeters in length. Some of the splits are massive in size – up to 15 centimeters in length,” the archaeologists say.

They have also found retouched flint end-scrapers on splits and blades, and a small quantity of retouched and polished flint blades.

“One of the pits stands out containing a large quantity of retouching flakes, and small splits of 1-2 centimeters in length,” they explain, noting that the rest of the excavated prehistoric pits at the production site near Bulgaria’s Belogradets contain mostly flint debris.

A view from the southeast of the Early Copper Age flint procesing workshop site near Bulgaria’s Belogradets. Photo: Lead archaeologist Victoria Petrova, Official catalog and poster for the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition

A prehistoric pit from the Early Copper Age site connected with the initial processing of flint material. Photo: Lead archaeologist Victoria Petrova, Official catalog and poster for the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition

A map showing the location of the Clacolithic flint production center near Belogradets, Varna District, in Northeast Bulgaria. Map: Google Maps

A map showing the location of the Belogradets Chalcolithic flint workshop (A) and the location of the Kamenovo flint workshop (Б) found in 2015 some 80 kilometers to the northwest. Map: BG Maps

Besides the debris from the processing of flint, in the Early Copper Age site, the archaeologists have also found pottery fragments, including parts of round bowls with encrusted decoration, and animal bones.

“An interesting find is a large flint core with a partially preserved crust,” the archaeological team points out.

Some of the nearly 7,000-year-old flint cores, flint end-scrapers, and manufacturing waste discovered in the Early Copper Age site in Northeast Bulgaria have been displayed in the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition at the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia.

Other 2020 rescue excavations also near the town of Belogradets, Varna District, for the construction of the Turkish Stream natural gas transit pipeline dubbed Balkan Stream by the Bulgarian government, have led to the discovery of an Ancient Bulgar settlement from the Early Middle Ages, a previously unknown satellite town of Pliska, the then capital of the First Bulgarian Empire.

Also check out these other stories about discoveries in Bulgaria of prehistoric flint tools and their production sites:

Archaeologists Unearth 6,500-Year-Old Chalcolithic Workshop for Flint Tools in Bulgaria’s Kamenovo

Archaeologists Discover 6,500-Year-Old Flint Workshop in Bulgaria’s Kamenovo Employed Manufactory Production

Archaeologists Discover 6,500-Year-Old Grave of Man Holding Stone Ax Scepter near Chalcolithic Flint Workshop in Bulgaria’s Kamenovo

‘Earliest Dispersal of Modern Humans’ in Eurasia’s Mid-Latitudes, Regular Mixing with Neanderthals Revealed by 46,000-Year-Old Remains from Bulgaria’s Bacho Kiro Cave

Prehistoric People Owned 40-Million-Year-Old Sea Urchin Fossil, Carpathian Obsidian, Neolithic Settlement in Bulgaria’s Ohoden Pushed Back to Mesolithic

Also check out this other story about a rescue excavation discovery near Bulgaria’s Belogradets during the construction of the Turkish Stream / Balkan Stream natural gas transit pipeline:

Third Satellite Town of Early Medieval Bulgarian Empire’s Capital Pliska Found during Digs for Turkish Stream Natural Gas Pipeline

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The post Archaeologists Find nearly 7,000-Year-Old Copper Age Workshop for Production of Flint Tools near Belogradets in Northeast Bulgaria appeared first on Archaeology in Bulgaria. and Beyond.