Front cover: Sunrise over Harmankaya rock shrine, in the Rhodope, 1st Millennium BC

Title page: Phiale from the Panagyurishte Treasure, 4th Century BC

Dimana Trankova Miglena Vasileva Anthony Georgieff

Homer's The Iliad quoted from the English translation of A. T. Murray, Cambridge,
MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924.
The Histories by Herodotus are quoted from the English translation of A. D. Godley,
Harvard University Press, 1920.

A GUIDE TO THRACIAN BULGARIA

by Dimana Trankova, Miglena Vasileva, Anthony Georgieff
Dimana Trankova (text)
Miglena Vasileva (text)
Anthony Georgieff (photography)
Subedited by Vassil Yovchev
Edited by Anthony Georgieff
Graphic design by Gergana Shkodrova
Printed by Janet-45 Print & Publishing, Plovdiv
FSI Foundation, 2015
First published in July, 2015

The publication of this book is supported by the America for Bulgaria

Foundation. The statements and opinions expressed herein are those
of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the
America for Bulgaria Foundation and its partners.
. ,
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(, , )
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All rights reserved. Without limiting the copyright reserved above, no part of this publication
may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form
or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise), without the prior written
consent of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-619-90319-2-6

A GUIDE TO

THRACIAN BULGARIA

CONTENTS

Who Are the Thracians?

Where Did the Thracians Live?
Shrines and Deities
Megaliths
Monumental Tombs
Thracian Treasures
Aleksandrovo Tomb
Perperikon
Mezek Tomb
Circles of Stone
Sboryanovo
Begliktash
Tatul

Begliktash megalithic sanctuary, near Primorsko

Hlyabovo
Gluhite Kamani
The Valley of Thracian Kings
Harmankaya
Starosel
Belintash
Madzharovo
Buzovgrad
Orlovi Skali
Karanovo
Mishkova Niva
Nonmaterial Heritage
Timeline

Who Were the Thracians?

About 4,000 years ago the lands of modern

Bulgaria were inhabited by people who built
fortifications and cities, buried their dead
in monumental tombs, drank wine from
gold and silver cups, and warred, traded and
did politics with the ancient Greeks and
Romans, with the Persians, the Scythians and
the ancient Macedonians.
These people were the Thracians.
Today their name is barely known to
anyone outside southeastern Europe. The
Thracians built for eternity especially tombs
and shrines but they lived in the moment
and, underestimating the importance of
writing down their deeds, they left next to
nothing about their history, faith and beliefs.
And so, bar the fascinating sites and treasures
they created, the life of the Thracians remains
more or less a mystery.
What we know for sure is that the
Thracians are Indo-Europeans and began to
emerge as a singular ethnic group around
the middle of the 2nd Millennium BC.
Did these people form gradually, over
millennia, from the oldest, Neolithic inhabitants

of southeastern Europe? Or descended from

newcomers who changed the population in
the region during the transition between the
Chalcolithic and the Bronze ages, in the first
half of the 4th Millennium BC? These questions
so far have no definitive answer.
The ancient Greeks, who produced the
most extensive historical source about their
neighbours the Thracians, called Thraike or
Thrake the lands to the northeast of their
own territories. The people who lived there
were respectively called Thracians.
There are several theories about what
the name Thracian means. It could be the
Greek form of a local ethnonym, possibly
connected with ancient Troy and the Trojans.
We know from Homer, who created the
first written source of Thracians' existence,
that the Thracians sided with Troy during the
infamous 10-year war. Their kings Rhesus,
Peiros and Acamas fought with the Greeks,
and Rhesus was famed for his beautiful
white horses.
Another theory claims that originally
Thracian meant "brave" or "courageous", but

later switched to mean "wild" and "savage."

According to an ancient story, Thrace, the
land of the Thracians, bore the name of a
nymph called Thrake, a powerful sorceress
who would use her knowledge of herbs to
heal and harm, at her whim.
The Thracians inhabited a vast area
between the Carpathian mountains, the Black
Sea and the Aegean Sea with the islands of
Thassos and Samothrace, and the courses of
the Struma and Morava rivers. Today these
lands are divided between Bulgaria, northern
Greece, European Turkey, southern Romania
and parts of Serbia and Macedonia. The core
of the Thracian lands is in Bulgaria.
The Thracians were famously disunited
politically. They lived in numerous tribes
the accounts vary between 22 and 80 and
each of these groups had its own nobility
and rulers. Among this multitude, the tribes
of the Odrysians, the Bessi, the Tribali and
the Getae have left the most significant
historical and archaeological record.
The lands of the Thracians were rich in
natural resources. The dense woods gave

them timber and game; copper, iron, gold

and silver mines dotted the mountains.
Healing mineral water springs lured the
Thracians to settle around, and the fertile
soil nurtured the famed local wheat, horses
and vines from which the Thracians made
strong wine.
On the verge of the 2nd and the 1st
millennia BC, the Thracians went through
a crucial change of technology. Bronze was
replaced by iron as the metal for tools and
weapons. The new material made ploughing
the land and cutting wood easier, faster
and more productive, and the generally
self-sufficient Thracian society found itself
with more to sell on the market. The new
weapons were better for killing people as
well, and as the Thracian aristocrats saw
hunting, war and plundering to be the sole
activities worthy of men like themselves,
they became richer.
Iron changed culture too, spearheading
the building of megaliths. In this period, the
Thracians created a significant number of
dolmens, rock tombs and rock niches, and

started hewing canals and ritual basins on

their old shrines, situated on rocky peaks.
The everyday objects also changed. Jewellery,
pottery and tools all became more refined
and practical.
Until the middle of the 1st Millennium
BC, the Thracians stood out of the limelight,
but this changed between the 7th and 5th
centuries BC. The Greeks started building
their colonies on the Aegean and the Black
Sea coasts, and gradually replaced the
Thracians on the Samothrace and Thassos
islands. Before his campaign to Greece, the
Persian king Darius I (550486 BC) invaded
a significant part of Southern Thrace.
The turmoil changed the Thracians. At
the end of the 6th and the beginning of the
5th centuries BC, the Thracian tribes of the
Derrones, the Oreski and the Lei began
minting their own coins, a sign for economic
and political emancipation. One of the most
significant treasures of ancient Thracian coins
is the one found at the Velichkovo village, near
modern-day Pazardzhik, which numbers nine
silver coins each weighing about 40 gr.

Soon afterwards, Herodotus, in his

History, gave an astonishing piece of
information about the Thracians. He wrote
that they had been the most numerous
nation in the world, second only to the
Indians. In modern Bulgaria, you will see
this proudly repeated all over in tourist
literature. Historians, however, have long
disputed the accuracy of Herodotus's
account. The Thracians were indeed more
numerous than the ancient Greeks, but
they themselves were outnumbered by the
ancient Scythians and the Celts.
Estimates see the population of ancient
Thrace between 800,000 and 1 million, but
this number may turn out to be higher.
The population was not distributed
evenly. The lands north of the Stara Planina
mountain were less populated, as they were
more vulnerable to attacks from across the
Danube and had harsher climate. Interestingly,
the majority of Thracian gold and silver
treasures have been found in this territory.
The population south of the Stara Planina
was denser, leading to a greater number

of Thracian sites: megaliths, monumental

tombs, cities, fortresses. These lands were
also closer to the Greek ones, and would be
influenced by the ancient Greek civilisation.
At the end of the 6th and during the early
5th centuries BC, this territory became the
cradle of the first and the biggest political
entity the Thracians ever created.
It was the Odrysian kingdom of King
Teres I, a man who according to some
sources lived to 92 years of age, led
aggressive foreign policy, yet boasted that
when he wasn't on a hunt or at war, he
would be indistinguishable in appearance
from his own stablemen.
The history of the Odrysian kingdom
is better known, thanks to Thucydides, the
great historian of the 5th Century BC.
In the 5th and 4th centuries BC, the
Odrysian kingdom was a prominent actor
in international politics, signing treaties and
waging wars with Athens and the Kingdom
of Macedonia. The Odrysian kingdom
experienced its heyday in the 4th Century
BC, under the kings Sitalces and Seuthes I,

and spread far to the southeast, southwest

and northeast of the Balkans. It was so
strong that even the Greek colonies on the
Aegean coast paid it tributes.
The game changed, however, in the
mid-4th Century BC. Both King Philip II of
Macedon and his son, Alexander the Great,
invaded Thrace. Their power didn't last
long, but had strong effects on the local
economy, urban planning and culture. A
number of cities, for example, were founded
on the sites of earlier Thracian settlements,
the most famous of them is Philippopolis
(modern Plovdiv), named after Philip II.
The death of Alexander the Great, in 323
BC, brought about the end of his empire,
which fell apart in several chunks.Thrace
was given to Lysimachus, one of Alexander's
generals, but the change was seen by the
Thracians as an opportunity for independence.
Lysimachus tried, in vain, to secure his position
in the eastern Balkans. In this period Thrace
also drifted into the cosmopolitan Hellenistic
world, where, just like today, people, goods,
fashions and ideas moved freely.

In Thrace, a number of independent

kingdoms sprang, and urbanisation was on
the rise. The graves became richer, filled with
luxurious and imported everyday objects,
weapons and jewellery, signalling the increased
wealth of the elite. Seuthes, the king of the
Odrysians, even built himself a capital in line
with the latest Hellenistic urban fashion and
gave it his name, just like Alexander the Great
did with the cities he had founded.
At the beginning of the 3rd Century BC,
Celts arrived in Thrace and even created a
kingdom there. They had their capital at Tyle,
but its location remains unidentified. The
new settlers changed local culture, bringing
in elements typical for Central Europe, like
new fashions in jewellery and weaponry,
mainly brooches, shields and swords.
After the mid-3rd Century BC, Thrace
fell spiralled into gradual decline, a trend
which continued until the 1st Century BC.
The Thracian tribes waged war against one
another, and fought with the Greek colonies
on the Black Sea coast. Thrace was also the
scene of brutal fights between the heirs of

Alexander the Great, and although it was part

of the bigger Hellenistic civilisation, it was
still in its periphery and far from the glorious
centres of culture and trade in Egypt, the
Near East and the Mediterranean islands.
As a result, most of the Thracian cities
were abandoned and destroyed, and fewer
aristocrats could afford expensive graves and
tombs. The commoners had grown poorer.
The 1st Century BC became the time of
gradual subjugation by the Romans, who used
the tools of politics to achieve their goal
from war to buying off local rulers, and from
diplomacy to pitting local fiefdoms against one
another. By 45 AD the whole of Thrace was
already under the Romans, divided into the
provinces of Macedonia, Moesia,Thrace and
Dacia.The Thracians lost their independence
and became the subjects of the great empire.
Some of the Thracians decided that
enough was enough, and fled to the
mountains, where they became itinerant
herdsmen and stuck to their traditions and
language. Others remained in the cities and
the villages in the plain, making the most of

life in an empire. They became merchants,

soldiers and administrators like the rich
Thracian buried in the Eastern Mound at
Karanovo. These people also learnt Greek
and Latin, and prayed to new and old gods.
After the 4th Century, a rising number of
them fell for Christianity.
In their long history, the Thracians never
managed to create vigorous city-states,
which thrived on trade and war, like the
Greeks, or a stable kingdom like the ancient
Macedonians. The Thracian society was pretty
simple it was divided into a noble elite led
by a king, and a majority of free commoners
who made their living in agriculture and
crafts. Slavery existed, but never reached the
scale of the well-developed slave market in
Greece and Rome. For the Thracians, slaves
were mainly prisoners-of-war, and were
treated as little more than servants.
Thracian women had more rights than
their Greek sisters. Unlike the Greek
women, who would spent their lives behind
the walls of their houses, the Thracian girls
enjoyed significant freedom before they

married. Polygamy was common among the

Thracian elite.
The life of aristocracy was understandably
more pleasant than that of commoners. A
significant portion of time was devoted to
hunting and feasting, or to war. The Thracians
had a reputation of fierce warriors, and
throughout the Antiquity their lands were the
source of a steady flow of mercenaries. The
most bellicose tribes were the Bessi and the
Tribali, and Spartacus, who shed fear across
the Roman Empire with the rebellion of the
gladiators in 74-71 BC, was a Thracian.
The Thracians also loved wine, shocking
contemporary Greeks with their habit to
drink it straight rather than mixed with water.
Actually, they did that because the Thracian
wine was not that thick and strong as the
Greek one. The Thracians also had a kind of
barley beer, which they drank with straws.
Drugs, probably cannabis, were also
part of the Thracian life. Ancient historians
testify that seeds and weeds would be
thrown into open fire, and the men around
would get high on the smoke.

Bronze matrix with decoration in the so-called Zoomorphic

style, from the beginning of the 5th Century BC. Such
matrices were used in the making of decorative ornaments
and harnesses. Found near Garchinovo village, northeastern
Bulgaria, this artefact sheds light on the influences which
Thracian culture experienced at the time. Until recently,
there was a debate if the matrix was made by a Thracian
or by a Scythian master, today most of scientists agree
that it was created in a Greek atelier in the Scythian lands
somewhere on the northern Black Sea coast. How and
why the matrix reached the lands of the Thracians remains
a mystery

What happened with the Thracians when

the Antiquity ended?
Many were already Romanised during
the Roman era, so they gradually lost their
distinct culture and language, blending
with the broader imperial society until
they disappeared. Lots of them lost their
lives during the invasions of the so-called
Barbarians, between the 3rd to 7th centuries
AD. By the end of the 7th Century, a significant
portion of Thrace was incorporated into a
new, ambitious state, Bulgaria. What had left
of the Thracians mixed with the newcomers,
the Slavs and the Bulgarians, forming the
foundation of modern Bulgarians.
The existence of the Thracians was
all but forgotten in the Middle Ages and
during the Ottoman rule, but since the
19th Century archaeology and history have
discovered more and interesting parts of
this ancient people's heritage in Bulgaria.
With this book, published with the support
of the America for Bulgaria Foundation, it is
now yours to explore.

10

Helmet and complete set of armour found in the grave of

a Thracian aristocrat from the mid-4th Century near the
Malomirovo and Zlatinitsa villages. The deceased died at
the age of 18-20 years and was 1.84 m high. He was buried
with the classical bowed Thracian sword called mahaira,
177 bronze arrows, seven spears, a knitted breastplate
made of iron and a bronze helmet decorated with a threeheaded snake. A silver grieve with gilt and decoration of a
human face was also buried with him

12

The man from Malomirovo and Zlatinitsa was buried not

only with weapons but also with expensive objects like this
beautiful gold wreath, a gold ring picturing himself receiving
immortality from the Great Goddess, and a set of silver and
gilt drinking vessels. Dogs and horses were sacrificed over
the grave of the man, and for several years afterwards, the
tumulus was the centre of ritual activities

13

 Iskra Museum of History, Kazanlak

Inset: Bronze mirror from the second half of the 5th

Century BC from Kasabova Mogila, near Kazanlak. The
mound was a curious find instead of a single grave, four
groups of cremated human bones were discovered there.
Whether they belonged to the same individual, or to
different people, remains unsolved. During the 1877-1878
Russo-Turkish war, five Russian soldiers who fell in the
defence of the nearby Shipka Pass, were buried in the
mound

Lavish gold decorations for horse harnesses found in

Golyama Kosmatka Tomb, near Kazanlak, from the
beginning of the 3rd Century BC

Iskra Museum of History, Kazanlak

Iskra Museum of History, Kazanlak

Bronze situla, or bucket, decorated with heads of Sylen, and

a pair of silver bowls from the 4th Century BC were found
in the Malkata Mogila, or Small Mound, near Kazanlak.
The tomb where the deceased was buried was crude in
construction, but his personal belongings were finely made,
and included a gold ring and two sceptres with the form
of a double axe, a symbol of royal power for the ancient
Thracians

14

15

Shrines and Deities

The Thracians inhabited the Balkans

for millennia, but they were reluctant
chroniclers and didn't develop their own
writing, leaving us next to nothing about
their political history, their oral culture,
their beliefs and religion. Even non-written
sources are hard to come by as the
Thracians began depicting deities and heroes
on tombs, vessels, clothes ornamentation,
weapons and harnesses only after the 6th
Century BC, following the Greek example.
This is why much of what we know
about them comes from outside, often
unreliable sources: ancient Greek, Roman
and Byzantine authors. Even when they
were trying to be as objective as they could
(which was not always the case), these
historians, chroniclers, poets and scribes
were the products of different cultures, and
sometimes lived centuries after the events
and the people they wrote about. This
resulted in inevitable losses in translation,
literal and figurative; a fact which makes
it difficult to tell truth from fable in texts
concerning the Thracians.

24

25

Harmankaya
King Ivan Shishman (1371-1393) and Ivan Asen; a miniature
from the Ivan

Another obstacle for deciphering

Thracian history and religion is the
notorious disunity of this people the
Thracian tribes were too numerous and
too independent, and there was hardly a
consistent religious system among them. In
all probability, each of the tribes had its own
set of beliefs, rituals and even deities.
Yet, the Thracians have left something
related to their religion which modern
historians could try to "read": their shrines
and the artefacts found in them. But doing
so poses another danger. Enchanted by the
beauty of the Thracian shrines, historians
with hyperactive imagination often forget
to exercise healthy scientific scepticism
and start to "see" non-existent faces
of imaginary deities, "nuptial beds" and
"devil's throats" everywhere. The Thracian
religious sites that have suffered from such

26

Previous spread: Belintash shrine, near Asenovgrad, in the

Rhodope
This gold earring with the Goddess Nike in a chariot
was buried together with her owner, possibly a Thracian
priestess, in the 3rd-2nd centuries BC in a mound near
modern Sinemorets, on the southern Black Sea coast. It
was discovered in 2006 and is now in the National Museum
of History in Sofia

activity, like Belintash and Perperikon in the

Rhodope. These sanctuaries thrived through
the 1st Millennium BC, and many were
abandoned only when Christianity slowly
prevailed between the 4th and 6th centuries.
overinterpretation are a legion, including
As a rule, these early shrines were built
Tatul and Perperikon in the Rhodope, and
on naked, precipitous rocks, mainly in the
Begliktash in the Strandzha. Even natural
Strandzha, the Sakar and the Rhodope
phenomena like the rocks at Buzovgrad are mountains. Even today, one can see why.
now promoted in the media as the deeds of They stand out against the landscape,
the ancient Thracians. Any oddly shaped rock imposing a sense of incredibility, and are
all over the Rhodope may get advertised as
clearly visible from afar. The list of the
an actual, larger-than-life, sacred sculpture of most significant sanctuaries of this type
turtles, snakes and even sharks.
includes Perperikon, Tatul, Gluhite Kamani,
But the lack of written sources and the
Harmankaya, Belintash, Madzharovo and
difficulties with dealing with actual sites does Orlovi Skali, all in the Rhodope.
not mean that historians are completely at
Many of these rock shrines are covered
a loss as to the Thracian religious heritage.
with countless canals, basins, pads, stairs
In fact, Bulgaria is rich in marvellous and
and niches. They all represent the Thracian
interesting Thracian shrines, which are at
idea that the universe was created in the
once a feat and a delight to see and explore. stone uterus of the Great Goddess when
The most significant Thracian shrines
she was impregnated by the Great God,
appeared in the Late Bronze Age (16th to
her son and lover, who also symbolises the
12th centuries BC), sometimes at places
sun. This hypothesis is backed by the almost
with strong traces of previous religious
anatomically correct features of natural

Asara rock shrine occupies a rocky, overgrown height

over Angel Voyvoda village, near Haskovo, and boasts
several rock tombs. It was well preserved until the early
1990s, but treasure-hunters have taken over, destroying a
significant portion of the site

rocks found in these shrines vulva-shaped

caves and rocks resembling erect phalluses.
The ancient authors have preserved, in
their stories, the existence of a major and
widely respected Thracian sanctuary. The
Oracle of Dionysus resided in the lands of
the Bessi, and its priestesses predicted the
future with great accuracy, including the rise
to power of men like Alexander the Great
and the Roman emperor Augustus. The
whereabouts of the oracle, however, remain
a mystery.
The deities worshipped in Thracian
shrines are also difficult to identify. We know
from Greek sources the names of some of
the Thracian gods and goddesses Zalmoxis,
Cotyto, Bendis and are told that the
Thracians also venerated Dionysos, Artemis,
Apollo and Hermes. The anonymous
Thracian God Rider Ppopular is also popular,
mainly in votive tablets. But it is still unclear
whether these deities weren't in fact just
the multiple manifestations of the Great
Goddess and the Great God. If you explore
Thracian art, you will discover the recurring

27

Remains of a man with severed legs, buried in a sacrificial

pit from the 4th Century BC in the sanctuary at Yabalkovo,
southeastrn Bulgaria. Human sacrifice was quite common in
ancient Thrace the bodies of men, women and babies have
been found, some of them were buried alive

Associate Professor Milena Tonkova, PhD

Right: A double rock tomb takes the highest place at the

Tatul rock shrine, a symbolic representation of the idea that
whoever is buried inside the man-made womb of the Great
Goddess will be close to the sun, the element of the Great
God

figure of a female deity. This was probably

the Thracian Great Goddess, the one who
created the universe and ruled it. Her
presence can be seen everywhere: in the
jugs and bowls of the Rogozen Treasure, in
the frescoes and sculptures of the Sveshtari
Tomb, on the paintings of the Kazanlak
Tomb, on gold rings and elsewhere.
The Great Goddess was also the one
who sanctioned the political power of
Thracian kings. In the Thracian society, the
monarch or the chief of the tribe was also
its main priest. He was seen as the earthly
incarnation of the Great God, and would
perform rituals of symbolical marriage to
the Great Goddess.
The ancient Greeks believed that after
death all people were doomed to a gloomy
existence as shadows in the sad kingdom

28

implying frequent visitations, and sometimes

had elaborate faades, as if they were built
to be eye feast for the living, who would
perform mysterious rites at the chambers.
The stone thresholds of such tombs are
found much worn out by the feet of
of Hades. But the Thracians believed in life
countless visitors. In and around the tombs
after death, and according to Herodotus,
are preserved the remains of regular
some tribes would rejoice so much when
sacrifices.
a person died that his wives would begin
In spite of centuries of worship, the
to quarrel for the honour to be killed and
barren, hard terrain of rock sanctuaries
buried with him.
combined with yet more centuries of
Noble Thracians, supposedly the
treasure hunting has left few artefacts
followers of the mystic teachings of
for the archaeologists to study. The most
Orpheus, were even deified after their
common finds from Thracian shrines
death. This is why many shrines feature
include pottery (whole or in shards), tools
some sort of a grave or a tomb: dolmens,
and weapons, animal bones, burned clay
rock tombs, monumental tombs. These were from the light buildings for the priests and
more than sepulchres: they were also places the pilgrims. Some of these were made
for worship to the deified people buried in
especially for the rituals: amulets and scaled
them.
models of tools, idols and tokens for ritual
Sometimes, monumental tombs were
games.Yet more were objects for daily use:
also used as shrines, and there are numerous sickles and knives, pins and loom weights,
signs pointing to this interpretation. The
millstones and coins, jewellery and weapons.
monumental tombs all have corridors,
Some of these offerings were ritually broken

or disfigured, as if they, too, should be killed

to please the gods.
Temples are an important part of
any shrine, but if you don't count the
ones found in the Greek colonies on
the Black Sea coast, few such buildings
have been positively identified in the
Thracian heartland. Thracian temples
have been discovered on Nebet Tepe Hill,
in Plovdiv; the sunken city of Seuthopolis,
near Kazanlak; Cabyle, near Yambol; and
elsewhere. According to an inscription

at Seuthopolis, the city had a shrine of

Dionysus and a temple of the Great Gods,
and in Cabyle there used to be a temple of
Artemis Phosphoros, or Light-Bearer, as a
manifestation of the Great Goddess of the
Thracians.
But it is quite possible that more
temples existed, and a regular find from
across inland Thrace would back such a
proposition. It's about the altars, in the form
of rectangular or square pads made of clay
and decorated with rich geometrical motifs.

These have been found in cities (Seuthopolis,

Pistiros, Cabyle, Philippopolis) and shrines
(Demir Baba tekke in Sboryanovo, Tatul),
but also in the mounds of monumental
tombs (Buzovgrad, Sveshtari) and graves
(northeastern Thrace).
Between the 6th and the 1st centuries
BC, another type of shrines appeared: the
sanctuaries of pits dug in the ground. These
became the preferred form of religious
sites in inland Thrace. The pits had various
shapes conical and cylindrical, shaped as

29

The Great Goddess of the Thracians is depicted seated in

a chariot drawn by gryphons on a jug from the Rogozen
Treasure from the second half or the beginning of the
3rd Century BC. This Thracian deity was sometimes
associated with the Greek Artemis (note the bow she is
holding) and was seen as the ruler of wild beasts

30

31

Left: Begliktash megalithic shrine, near Primorsko

The Great Goddess is depicted on this silver and gold
greave from the 4th Century BC. It was discovered buried
alongside its owner in a mound in Vratsa, northwestern
Bulgaria. The fact that only one greave was in the grave of
a young woman suggests it has it was a part of some ritual.
The stripes on the goddess's face are interpreted as ritual
tattoos. According to Herodotus, the Thracians did tattoo
themselves

pears, beehives and casks. Most often 1-2

metres deep, they were filled with broken
pottery, animal bones, ashes and embers. In
about 1-2 percent of these, parts and even
full human skeletons have been found. Some
of the people in the pits were alive when
they were thrown in, which gives credibility
to the suggestion that they were sacrificed
to the Thracian gods.

32

Again Herodotus sheds light on the

archaeological finds. By his account, when
some Thracian tribes felt that their prayers
needed more attention from the God
Zalmoxis, they would stick spears in the
ground, choose the best man among them,
and throw him on the blades. While he was
dying, they would sent their messages to the
deities.

Most researchers believe that the pit

shrines were devoted to the cult of the
Great Goddess. The holes symbolised her
womb and provided connection with the
spirits of the underworld and fecundity.
The Thracians also venerated running
waters and springs. Unfortunately, most
of the shrines they erected near water
have been lost mainly in the 20th Century

when reservoirs and dams were being built.

These include the sites at Bratsigovo and
Ognyanovo, near Pazardzhik. Scant Thracian
artefacts are preserved in later, Roman
shrines by sacred springs for example,
the temple of the nymphs at Kasnakovo,
near Dimitrovgrad. The only consistently
researched Thracian shrine by a sacred
spring is the one under the Ottoman Demir
Baba tekke, in Sboryanovo.
The Thracian gods and their shrines
started to fade from memory and life when
Christianity took over the Balkans. But
they never quite disappeared. Churches
rose on the remains of a number of pagan
shrines for example, in Pliska, Madara
and Montana and many Thracian shrines
are now venerated by Christians and
Muslims alike (Perperikon, Gluhite Kamani,
Demir Baba tekke, the Eski Mosque in Stara
Zagora, which now houses a museum of
religions). The ancient deities transformed,
too, entering local folklore and even
influencing the pantheon of Christian
saints.

33

Surviving beliefs
Some ancient Thracian shrines were forgotten when
Christianity arrived in the 4th Century, but others remained
active, used by generations of people who devoted them
to their gods and saints. The Strandzha mountain, for
example, abounds with cave springs which were sacred
to the Thracians and were later turned into chapels to
Christian saints.

34

One such place in the Strandzha (supposedly, as

archaeological research is yet to be conducted) is in the
area of Indipasha. The spring in the shallow cave is believed
to have healing powers. Indipasha gets crowded with
pilgrims on the Sunday after Easter, suggesting a connection
between paganism and Christianity

The secret of solar circles

You can see them everywhere in the Rhodope, the
Strandzha, the Sakar and the southeast circles hewn in
the rock, often at places identified as Thracian shrines.
These circles are sometimes deeply cut but sometimes
their outlines are barely visible. Some stand alone, others
form big clusters, often in sites interpreted as Thracian
shrines.

One of the most interesting groups is in the

Strandzha, in the Kamaka, or The Stone, locality, about
10 km from Malko Tarnovo on the road to Tsarevo.
Other sites of interest are the groups at Paleokastro and
Melnitsa, in the Sakar.
According to the most popular explanation, these
circles were made by the Thracians in rituals celebrating

their sun-and-rock cult. But recent research has

established that the origin of the "solar" circles is more
mundane. They are the remains of mill stones production,
and date to the Ottoman period or to modern times

35

The sheer size of the massive mound, the

claustrophobic space, the cold, the smell of
times past: entering a Thracian tomb is one
of the must-do experiences in Bulgaria.
More than 200 monumental Thracian
tombs have been discovered so far, and
they have proved to be more than imposing
burial structures. Besides the awe they
inspire, they are also an important source
of information about the funeral rites and
religious beliefs of the people who built
them.
How the Thracians fell for monumental
tombs is a question historians have yet to
answer. Initially, the researchers thought that
the Thracians were inspired by the much
bigger and older tombs of the Mycenaean
civilisation, which flourished in southern
Greece between 1600 BC and 1200 BC.
Other possible predecessors could be the
dolmens and rock tombs in Thrace itself.
But the relatively short period between the
5th and the 3rd centuries BC, when the
Thracians built monumental tombs, has led
to the conclusion that the idea was probably

46

Iskra Museum of History, Kazanlak

Monumental Tombs

Previous spread: Golden wreath depicting oak leaves from

the beginning of the 3rd Century BC, found in the Golyama
Kosmatka Tomb, near Kazanlak. In Thracian beliefs, wreaths
symbolised immortality in the afterlife
Left: Mural of a feast from the Kazanlak Tomb, around 280260 BC. The Great Goddess is present too, in the form of
the tall woman towering to the left of the feasting couple
A caryatid, with traces of colouring, from the sculpture
decoration of the Sveshtari Tomb, northeast Bulgaria, the
turn of the first and second quarter of the
3rd Century BC

borrowed from neighbouring areas which,

too, had this type of architecture at the time.
These include Anatolia, northern Greece,
ancient Macedonia. The Thracians, of course,
adapted what they borrowed according to
their beliefs, taste and building technologies.
The biggest concentration of
monumental tombs is in the central part
of southern Bulgaria and in the southeast,

48

where the centre of the Odrysian kingdom

was, and the lands of the Getae in the
northeast. Outside of these regions, these
tombs are rare.
Thracian monumental tombs are
always hidden under a mound, and unlike
elsewhere in ancient Macedonia, for
example only one tomb would be built
into a given tumulus.

The Thracians had a number of ways

to make the huge, expensive and timeconsuming mounds. Sometimes they would
heap them during the building of the tomb,
sometimes they would do it gradually, in
several periods. But whatever the technique,
no mound was formed before an elaborate
set of rituals had been performed. Traces
of these piles of pottery shards, hearths,

sacrificial pits, ceramic altars keep

popping up in the tumuli.
The biggest tumulus ever found is the
Shushmanets Mound, near Shipka, with
a diameter of 100 m and height of 20
m. Next in size are the nearby Golyama
Kosmatka Mound (diameter 90 m, height
20 m), the Zhaba Mogila Mound near
Strelcha (diameter 80-90 m, height 20 m),
Ostrusha near Shipka (diameter 80 m,
height 17 m) and the Mezek Mound near
Svilengrad (diameter 90 m, height 14 m).
Strong stone walls called crepis enclosed
the bases of the mounds, protecting
them from erosion. They also served as a
symbolic border between the world of the
living and the world of the dead. The largest
crepes discovered so far are the ones of the
Chetinyova Mound, near Starosel; and the
Mezek Mound, near Svilengrad they are
up to 3.5 m high and 5 m wide.
The Thracians built their tombs with a
variety of materials: stone slabs, boulders,

49

Left: The dromos, or corridor, of Kazanlak Tomb is a fine

example of the ancient Thracian tradition of covering
rectangular rooms with ceilings of overstepping bricks or
stone slabs. This is one of the oldest building techniques in
the world
The heads of Helios (pictured) and Medusa are carved
on the marble doors of the Golyama Kosmatka Tomb, as
guardians of the afterlife

How to save a tomb?

rubble, mud bricks, wood, and used also the

more expensive squared blocks or bricks.
The earliest Thracian tombs were
small and had simple designs. They would
usually have a corridor, which provided
the connection with the outside world; an
antechamber, which served for storing burial
goods or as a room for later burials; and a
chamber, either rectangular or circular.
Tombs became bigger and more
elaborate after the middle of the 4th

50

Century BC, when the political and

economic power of the Odrysian and Getae
kings was in ascendance. The tomb from
Gagovo, near Popovo, in Bulgaria's northeast,
for example, had two semi-circular burial
chambers, and the Ostrusha Tomb, near
Shipka, had six different rooms, including a
chamber cut of solid rock.
By the end of the 4th and the beginning
of the 3rd centuries BC, the Macedonian
fashion of tombs with cylindrical vaults made

its way into Thrace, its finest example being

the UNESCO-listed Sveshtari Tomb in the
Sboryanovo archaeological reserve.
These were the times when the two
biggest tombs were built, including the Mezek
Tomb (almost 30 m long and 4.3 m high) and
the tomb in the Golyama Kosmatka Mound
(26 m long and 4.5 m high).
Two-winged doors of wood or stone
kept the tombs closed, but few of these
have been preserved. The stone doors are

When the excavations at a tomb end, the

site is often left without proper covering
and the elements take over, bringing along
rapid deterioration. To avoid this, some
tombs have been moved from their original
locations to more protected environments.
The tomb from the town of Borovo,
near Ruse, for example, initially stood in a
field about 5 km outside the town. Now it
is in the town centre.
The same goes for the tomb of
Gonimasedze, wife of Seuthes, which used
to be near Smyadovo. It is now exhibited in
the Shumen Museum of History.

often found broken on the floor or even

outside the tomb. Whether this was done by
treasure-hunters or by Thracians performing
a ritual for the rebirth of the deified
dead is anybody's guess. Not all doors,
however, were the same: some tombs in the
Sboryanovo reserve have sliding doors and
the door guarding the inside of the Mezek
tomb was made of bronze.
Frescoes and architectural ornaments
are not uncommon in the Thracian tombs.
They depict scenes of sacred hunts, the
deification of dead aristocrats, battles and
funeral feasts. Few are preserved, in the
Aleksandrovo, Kazanlak, Sveshtari, Ostrusha
and Maglizh tombs. Doric and Ionic columns
adorned some tombs for example,
at Sveshtari, Shushmanets and Starosel.

Sculptures are extremely rare. For now we

know about the 10 caryatids in the Sveshtari
tomb and the two lions from the Chetinyova
Mound, of which only three paws have
survived. Both the bronze boar at the Mezek
Tomb and the bronze head of a bearded
man from the Golyama Kosmatka Tomb,
identified by some to be the Odrysian king
Seuthes III, once used to be parts of bigger
sculptures, now lost.
The identity of the painters and
sculptors who decorated the tombs is a
matter of debate. Some are thought to have
been Greeks as, for example, the man
who painted the exquisite murals in the
Kazanlak Tomb. Others, like the author of
the Aleksandrovo Tomb frescoes, were more
likely Thracians.

51

Left: The main scene of the murals of the Aleksandrovo

Tomb from the end of the 4th and the beginning of the
3rd centuries BC, near Haskovo, depicts sacred hunt
Below right: Ostrusha Tomb from the 4th Century BC,
near Kazanlak, is in a monolithic block which was hewn to
resemble a small temple

Thracian tombs were furnished with stone

funerary beds, sometimes with pillows sculpted
on them, and with a bunch of other furniture:
stone and wooden benches, seats, altars.
Expensive and time-consuming, tombs
were used continuously by later generations,
sometimes for centuries. Still, some tombs
seem to have been destroyed deliberately or
left unfinished.

52

In most cases, ancient and modern-day

treasure-hunters hit upon the tombs before
the archaeologists, emptying the monuments
and breaking them. The examples of tombs
untouched by intruders are too few, most
notably the ones in the Mezek, Sashova
Mogila and Golyama Kosmatka mounds.
But the finds from the tombs still speak
volumes about the life and death of the

ancient Thracians. Expensive ceramic and

metal vessels, made locally or imported from
Greece, were buried along with weapons
and lavish jewellery of silver and gold, to
serve their owners in the afterlife. These
objects were often ritually broken, as if they
should "die" too.
The remains of the deceased present
another enigma. Complete skeletons are

practically nonexistent, archaeologists

usually discover only parts of them for
example, the skull, the femurs or odd bones.
These often belong to different people.
Actually, the Thracians had been
doing this since the beginning of the 1st
Millennium BC. The explanation for this
strange ritual could be the Thracian Orphic
rites of immortalisation and deification of
priests, kings and distinguished persons.
In order to achieve divinity, they were
dismembered just like Orpheus, the
supposed founder of this religion, was torn
to pieces by the mad maenads.
Ritually slain horses and dogs are
often found at the Thracian tombs, buried
separately or along with the deceased. Animal
skeletons are usually found in anatomical
order, but this has not always been the case
the horses and dogs found in the tombs of
Sveshtari, for example, were decapitated.
The people buried in these tombs with
such pomp and ceremony were obviously
men and women of high rank, including

Entering a tomb
The late Dr Georgi Kitov discovered more monumental Thracian tombs than any of his
colleagues. How did he feel? In his 2008 book, Mounds, Temples, Tombs, he left a vivid
description of his first steps in the Sashova Mogila tomb, in 1995:
In the euphoria that set upon us, we cleared the upper part of the entrance. A second after I had
forbidden anyone to follow me, I stood in front of a sight beyond description. A relatively big chamber
with semi-cylindrical vault, a floor covered with sand and scattered pottery. To the left, a bed with the
remains of a human skeleton, to the right a horse skeleton. A variety of metal vessels on the floor... The
tomb hadn't been robbed, and had stood untouched since it was closed more than 20 centuries ago... I
crawled back outside, raised my hands and cried: 'A thing unseen by a living man!'.

kings and their families. Only one of them

has been positively identified so far
Gonimasedze, the wife of Seuthes. She was
buried in a tomb with a decorative faade
near the city of Smyadovo, in Bulgaria's
northeast, and a funeral inscription over
the entrance of the tomb tells us her
name. The Sveshtari Tomb was definitely a
royal one, yet the man it belonged to has
been identified only on indirect evidence.
The same goes for the supposed tomb
of Seuthes III, in the Golyama Kosmatka
Mound.
Some historians and archaeologists
believe that the Thracian tombs were not
only burial sites, but also heroons, or shrines
to deified predecessors, or even temples
where mystic rites were performed and
local rulers were deified. The hypothesis
is not entirely without foundation, and if
true, it will explain the elaborate faades of
some tombs, their worn-out thresholds and
the signs of repainting, door-changing, and
rebuilding of the structures.

As with so many other questions about

the life and death of the ancient Thracians,
this one lacks a definitive answer. For now
the secrets of the Thracian monumental
tombs remain unexplained.

53

Circles of Stone

WHAT? Cromlechs
WHERE? Near the villages of Dolni Glavanak
(Eastern Rhodope) and Staro Zhelezare (near
Starosel)
VISIT? Unguarded, free admission. The Dolni
Glavanak cromlech is at the end of a tourist path
which starts a few kilometres after the village,
from the road to Kardzhali. The cromlech at Staro
Zhelezare is east from the road between the villages
of Staro Zhelezare and Novo Zhelezare

In an attempt to attract visitors, a number

of archaeological sites in Bulgaria have been
comparing themselves to the most famous
cromlech, or stone circle, in the world:
Stonehenge. More often than not, however,
the Stonehenge tag has been applied to places
which have nothing to do with stone circles.
In fact, Bulgaria did have quite a number
of real cromlechs in the past, but only two
survive today: near the village of Dolni
Glavanak, in the Eastern Rhodope; and close to
the village of Staro Zhelezare, between Hisarya
and the southern slopes of the Sredna Gora
mountains.
The first to be discovered, in 1997 by Dr
Georgi Nehrizov, was the cromlech of Dolni

80

81

Previous spread: The cromlech at Dolni Glavanak, in

the Rhodope
After years of neglect, restoration of the stone circle
near Golyamo Zhelezare is now in progress

Glavanak. Situated on a low ridge overgrown

with thick oak forest, the stone circle consists
of 15 rocks about 1.5 m high. Its diameter
is about 10 m. Archaeological research has
shown that the complex was built between
the 8th and 6th centuries BC, and was in use
until the end of Antiquity.
Nearby, two smaller circles of boulders
have been found.
Why the megalith was built remains
unclear.The usual explanation given to tourists
is that it was a sort of observation post for
watching the sunrise to calculate sacred dates
in the Thracian calendar.
The stone circle at Staro Zhelezare was
discovered in 2002, under a pretty insignificant
mound by the village's dump yard.
It was a surprising discovery: 24 erect
stones forming a circle with a diameter of 7 m.
The slabs in the northern part of the circle rose
up to 1.8 m; with one exception, the stones on
the south were less than a metre high.
According to Dr Kitov, the scientist who
discovered them, the cromlech was erected
in the 6th Century BC and was used for

82

astronomical observations. Other researchers

think that the circle was built around the 10th
Century BC, and the tumulus was erected
later to hide the stones, for a reason that's as
yet unknown.
Regardless of its scientific significance,
until recently the Staro Zhelezare stone
circle seemed doomed to disappear. After
the excavations ended, the dug-up cromlech
was abandoned, his sole protection from the
elements coming from a flimsy cover. Soon, the
roof collapsed and wind and rainwater started
eating into what had remained of the mound.
Several years after the discovery, all the slabs
had fallen down and the undergrowth had
taken over, hiding everything in tall grass and
thorns.
A structure which had survived for
millennia was about to disappear.
But in the past few years an NGO took
interest in the site, and didn't spare effort for
its preservation, conservation and further
research with the main goal of restoring the
slabs to their original places and building
sufficient infrastructure to protect the site.

83

Sboryanovo

WHAT? Archaeological and nature reserve with

tumulus, tombs, city, citadel and shrines
WHERE? Near Isperih, in Bulgarias northeast
VISIT? The Sveshtari Tomb, UNESCO World
Heritage Site, is opened Wednesday to Sunday,
between 17 March and 30 November; a ticket
includes visits to two other tombs

No matter how diverse and interesting

Thracian heritage is, time, destruction
and rebuilding in war and peace, continual
habitation, and treasure-hunting have wiped
out a lot of it reducing it to a tomb here,
a treasure there, and a shrine in what today
appears to be the middle of nowhere.
There is a place, however, where a
significant part of the Thracian heritage and
infrastructure has been preserved, making it
easier to imagine what the actual life of this
ancient people was like. Covering the bends
and the surrounding hills of the Krapinets
River, the Sboryanovo archaeological
reserve offers a glimpse into a Thracian
city and citadel, as well as several necropoli
and shrines. The area has been actively
researched since the early 1980s, and has so
far proved fertile ground for archaeologists,
revealing not only astonishing architecture
and gold treasures, but also important

84

85

Previous spread: The caryatids in the chamber of the Sveshtari

Tomb probably represent the Great Goddess. They look the
same, yet their faces are unique, as if to illustrate once again
the idea of the many faces of the Great Goddess
The frieze of bulls' heads and wreaths over the entrance
indicates a Hellenistic influence in the architecture and
decoration of Sveshtari Tomb. The tomb was robbed in
Antiquity, but archaeologists have found the remains of a
60-year-old man on the burial bed. The man was probably
a king. The bones of an younger man, a woman and five
slaughtered horses were also discovered

information about the religion, economy

and social life of the Thracians.
From the second half of the 1st
Millennium BC until the times of the
Romans, the region was the home of the
Getae, a mighty and populous Thracian
tribe which controlled the lands on both
sides of the Danube. The Getae appeared
in written historical sources in the 6th
Century BC, when they were conquered by
the Persians, and later fought, with various
success, with ancient Macedonia and the
heirs of Alexander the Great. Research
at Sboryanovo shows that at least in the
4th and 3rd centuries BC this region was
the centre of the political power for the
Getae kings. Two of them, Cothelas and
Dromichaetes, who played a significant
role in international politics of the day, are
believed to have been buried in Sboryanovo.
The Sveshtarska Grobnitsa, or Sveshtari
Tomb, is the reserve's prime showstopper.
Discovered in 1982 in one of the biggest
mounds of the eastern necropolis Ginina
Mogila it is without a match throughout

86

87

The fresco in the burial chamber depicts the Great

Goddess giving immortality to the owner of the tomb,
on horseback. Riders had a key position in Thracian
religious beliefs. A mounted man was often depicted
in votive tablets, funeral art and expensive harnesses.
Sometimes he personified the Thracian God Rider, and
sometimes, as is the case with the Sveshtari Tomb, he
represented a deified king or an aristocrat. The idea of
the Thracian Rider was so strong that it survived until
the end of Antiquity and blended with the image of St
George and the folklore hero Krali Marko

the Thracian world. Its three rooms have

unusual barrel-vaulted ceilings. The burial
chamber is decorated with a fresco of an
imposing woman crowning a rider with a
wreath. Sculptures of 10 caryatids line the
walls of the room.
Sculpted of limestone, the women have
disproportionate bodies, intricately carved
dresses and sturdy faces with wide-opened
eyes, which captivate the visitor in the
claustrophobically narrow chamber.
Historians believe that the Sveshtari
caryatids represent the all-mighty Great
Goddess of the Thracians. She is also the
tall woman in the fresco, depicted at the
moment she brings immortality to the
deified owner of the tomb. Relying on
circumstantial evidence, some scientists
go as far as to claim to know who the
deceased was: King Dromichaetes, who
ruled over the Getae between the end
of the 4th and the first decade of the 3rd
Century BC.
In 1985 UNESCO listed the Sveshtari
Tomb as a World Heritage Monument. Due

88

to preservation issues, visiting time in the

tomb is strictly limited, and the site is closed
in winter.
For their part, the burial mounds
in Sboryanovo hold more promises of
interaction with the dead Thracians and
their way of life. So far, more than 100
tumuli have been identified here, giving
some explanation why until recently the
locals used to call the area The Land of the
Hundred Mounds. Most of the tumuli are
divided into two main necropoli. According
to a hypothesis, their positions were chosen
deliberately, making them a giant map of
some of the constellations in the sky.
In one of these groups, interpreted as an
earthly copy of the Orion constellation, rises
the 19-metre-high Great Sveshtari Tumulus.
It was excavated in the 1990s and again in
2004. The excavations led to the discovery
of a monumental tomb with Doric columns.
Built at the end of the 4th and the early the
3rd centuries BC, the tomb was destroyed
by an earthquake in the mid-3rd Century
BC. In 2013, the Great Sveshtari Tumulus

revealed other secrets: a buried wooden

box containing exquisite gold objects
weighing more than 1.5 kg, among them
women's jewellery and harness decorations.
According to some researchers, the
tumulus and the tomb belonged to Cothelas,
the Gaetic king in the last decades of the 4th
century BC who played an important role
in the local politics and who got married,
in 339 BC, his daughter, Meda, to the most
powerful man in the world, King Philip II of
Macedon. Other historians, however, believe
that the gold objects have connection with
King Dromichaetes.
Sboryanovo was not only a place for
the dead but also one for the living. On a
narrow and conveniently defensible plateau
by the Krapinets River, a walled city thrived
between the last quarter of the 4th and the
middle of the 3rd centuries BC. Back in the
day it was called either Dausdava or Helis
(historians disagree on the exact name) and
spread on over 25 acres. The city was the
home of craftsmen making goods from iron,
silver, gold and bone, and of people who

89

The 16th Century shrine of the Muslim sage Demir Baba

was built over the remains of one of the major Thracian
shrines in the area. The ancient boulders are still clearly
visible
Right: Mounds of all sizes abound in Sboryanovo
reserve until recently, locals called the area the Land of
Hundred Mounds. Erecting a mound was a tiresome and
time-consuming enterprise. The ones higher than 15 m
needed between two and six months to take shape. In the
background stands the Great Sveshtari Tumulus

enjoyed Greek wine and olive oil to such an

extent that they left us the most extensive
collection of imported amphorae ever found
in ancient Thrace. The city gained additional
importance by its position on an ancient salt
trade road.
The end of the Thracian city at
Sboryanovo came with a bang. It was
destroyed for good by a strong earthquake,
about 250 BC.
Today archaeological research of the
remains continues, but the trenches and low
stone walls are not particularly spectacular.
The south city wall can be seen passing
through the main road from the Sveshtari
Tomb to the village of Malak Porovets.
Another piece of the fortifications, from the
3rd to 1st centuries BC, is in the Polyanata
area, west of the Thracian city.
Several shrines of the Getae have been
identified in Sboryanovo. One of them,
currently called Demir Baba Tekke, is a good
example of how one set of beliefs has built
on another, ensuring continuity of religions
and superstitions.

90

It all started with the Thracians who,

between the end of the 4th and the early
1st Century BC, created a shrine with rock
altars and strong walls by the cold waters
of a spring, now called the Five-Fingers
Spring. When Christianity replaced paganism

in the 5th and 6th centuries, the site was

abandoned. It was revived again in the 16th
Century, when the tekke, or shrine, of the
Muslim sage Demir Baba, or Iron Father,
was built over its remains. Pilgrimage to
what had been a pagan site started anew, by

Muslims.The tekke is still an active religious

monument, visited by people who believe
that Demir Baba will cure their illnesses. The
strange, hexagonal stone tomb of the sage
is an arresting sight, positioned straight over
the rock altars of the ancient Thracians.

91