King’s throne of clay from 6 000 years ago was found at the king’s rock castle Perperikon from the Nikolai Ovcharov’s team. The clay is with four legs, an arched roof back and phallus in the center of the seat. According to mr Ovcharov’s words, that might typify the prelude toward the religious rite of the matrimony.
From this period of the finds at Perperikon there are found seven or eight more objects - idols, religious side-tables, utensil used for opiates, but the throne got no analogue. Just two days before that find, at Perperikon was found golden coin from the first half of the eleventh century, dating to the Mihail third Paflagon era. That coin has never been used and has been preserved into pelvis with analytical balance. At the first side is depicted the effigy of the emperor, at the other is the blessing Jesus Christ. That finds are available now with all other at the exposition at the Historical museum in Kurdjali.

The Thracian tomb was built and then a four-meter high mound was piled over it. The burial site is composed of rectangular burial chamber, antechamber and a corridor. The burial chamber was built of marble and limestone blocks joined with iron clamps poured with lead. The floor was paved with marble plates. The chamber was covered with huge lime-stone blocks. The first row of the walls was made of cubic marble plates, in which decorations were chiseled out. Geometrical figures – discs, plates, rectangles, pentacles, as well as two realistic zoomorphic images – a fish and the head of a horse – are part of the decoration of the tomb. These figures along with the half-moon chiseled out near the entrance form a composition with strong aesthetic impact that most probably hides encoded information related to the burial cult.

Continue reading Thracian Tomb near the village of Dolno Lukovo, Ivailovgrad municipality Bulgaria

A natural furrow additionally carved and shaped like a small rock basin, can be found approximately 1.5km southeast from the village of Oriahovo in the valley of the riverbanks. Throughout the year, it is filled with water that does not dry up even during times of drought. The liquid flows in the basin from a crack in the rock. There are reasons to believe that during antiquity, before the deforestation of the region, the natural spring was far more deep-watered.

The Ancient Thracians gave a divine notion to the springs and often turned them into sanctuaries dedicated to the water nymphs, called nympheums. The additional carvings in the basin of the vicinity of God’s Step were probably done for this purpose. It is apparent that this sanctuary was part of the huge cult burial complex on the land of the village of Oriahovo, which also includes several dolmen tombs and cult rock niches. They were used for performing rituals connected with the cult of the dead, as well as those connected with the Thracian belief in a cyclic recurrence of the permanently reviving nature.

Continue reading God’s Step, Ljubimetz municipality Bulgaria

The architectural monument – obelisk of the perished during the Balkan War in the year 1912 was erected in 1941 at the Sheinovec peak, in the land between the villages of Valche Pole and Malko Gradishte.

The peak itself is connected to the beginning of the Balkan War in 1912. According to the Bulgarian secret services, on October 4, 1912, the Ottoman battalion on the Kurtkale peak numbered around 100 soldiers and two more small brigades were situated nearby. Commanding authorities of the Bulgarian military were preparing for an assault on the peak with the aim of seizing it, since the place is convenient for scanning the valleys of the Arda and Maritsa rivers and the Edirne Valley. Access to the peak is exceptionally difficult. The slopes from the south and northwest descend vertically and are inaccessible, while the eastern slope is rocky and steep. Climbing to the top was possible only via one path, meandering between the rocks and bushes.

Continue reading Architectural monument – obelisk of the perished during the Balkan War (1912), Ljubimetz municipality

During 1964, while building a dam 1.5km southwest of the residential Ivailovgrad district of Ladja, builders happened upon traces of an ancient building. The archeological excavations that followed revealed remains from antiquity of a villa from the period of Roman dominion of the land. It became popular by the name Villa Armira, derived from the name of a small river (a tributary of the Arda River) on whose banks the villa is built.The ancient Villa Armira is an impressive complex of residential and economic buildings on a territory of 2,200m2. The residential area covers 978m2, embracing a huge inner yard and surrounded by a closed gallery with columns and a swimming pool in the middle. The residential rooms – dining room, living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, etc., are situated around the pool. The heating of the rooms was carried out using hypocaust, an under-floor system in which the floor of the building is raised on columns built from brickwork or ceramic pipes, among which warm air circulates, heated by a specially built fireplace.
Continue reading Villa Armira archeological monument, Ivailovgrad municipality

Last week i have a work travel to the city of Svilengrad, South Eastern Bulgaria, and when my intentions was to leave and get back to Haskovo i saw a road sign which point to the ancient Trachian Tomb of Mezek. I was not wondering what to do at all, i have just turned left to the road and started to approach this interesting place.In the region of Svilengrad were discovered numerous traces from Tharcian settlements, tumuli and sanctuaries, amongst which the most valuable and best preserved one is the monumental tomb close to the village of Mezek. It is situated in the vicinity of the remains of an impressive Medieval fortress built in the 11thc. The tomb near the village of Mezek was the biggest domed tomb in Thrace, meant obviously for some master. It was built in the 4th c. BC, and was covered like all Thracian tombs with an enormous mound.
Continue reading Journey to the Thracian tomb near Mezek