Thracian Tomb Dated to 4th Century BC

Coin found near tomb displays King Amatokos II coat of arms.

After years of research, the Starosel Tomb in Bulgaria has been dated to the 4th century BC. The Ancient Thrace tomb is the largest underground temple on the Balkan Peninsula.

In the summer of 2009, an archaeological team took samples from a stake in the middle of the tomb where gifts to the Greek goddess of the hearth Hestia had been laid. Radio carbon dating carried out in Germany has shown that the stake was burned in the period after 358 BC, when the temple was constructed, and dirt was heaped on top of it to form a burial mound.

Current analysis indicates that the temple in the village of Starosel and the nearby Thracian ruler’s residence under Mount Kozi Gramadi were built during the reign of the Thracian King Amatokos II (359-351 BC). The family coat of arms of King Amatokos was a doubleheaded ax, or a labrys. Symbols of a labrys were discovered on several items around Starosel, including Thracian coins.

Click here for the complete article.

Advanced Balkan Society Predated Greece, Rome

Front and back of fired-clay female figurine, circa 4050 BC.

Archaeologists and historians are assembling the history of a society that existed in the Balkan foothills around 5000 BC ~ long before the rise of Greece and Rome ~ and produced surprisingly advanced art, technology, and long-distance commerce. No one knows what these people called themselves, but historians are now labeling them simply “Old Europe.”

According to the New York Times:

For 1,500 years, starting earlier than 5000 B.C., they farmed and built sizable towns, a few with as many as 2,000 dwellings. They mastered large-scale copper smelting, the new technology of the age. Their graves held an impressive array of exquisite headdresses and necklaces and, in one cemetery, the earliest major assemblage of gold artifacts to be found anywhere in the world.

Until recently, the most recognizable artifacts from Old Europe were terracotta “goddess” figurines, originally regarded as evidence of the spiritual and political power of women in society.

Although excavations over the last century uncovered traces of ancient settlements and the goddess figurines, it was not until local archaeologists in 1972 discovered a large fifth-millennium B.C. cemetery at Varna, Bulgaria, that they began to suspect these were not poor people living in unstructured egalitarian societies. Even then, confined in cold war isolation behind the Iron Curtain, Bulgarians and Romanians were unable to spread their knowledge to the West.

The story now emerging is of pioneer farmers after about 6200 B.C. moving north into Old Europe from Greece and Macedonia, bringing wheat and barley seeds and domesticated cattle and sheep. They established colonies along the Black Sea and in the river plains and hills, and these evolved into related but somewhat distinct cultures, archaeologists have learned. The settlements maintained close contact through networks of trade in copper and gold and also shared patterns of ceramics.

New research, archaeologists and historians say, has broadened understanding of this long overlooked culture, which seemed to have approached the threshold of “civilization” status.

Click here for the New York Times article.

Fired clay architectural model from Old Europe, circa 4050 BC.

Ancient Village Unearthed in Bulgaria

Discoveries in Bulgaria include a massive stone fortification.

Bulgarian archaeologists have discovered a 7,000-year-old settlement close to the northeast city of Shumen, which dates back to the Stone-Copper Age. So far, they’ve uncovered more than 300 finds, most made of marble.

"These items are extremely rare,” says Stefan Chohadzhiev, an archaeology professor at Veliko Tarnovo University. “They were worn by very specific people. These are decorations that were not available to the masses. There are also others made of clay or bone."

The most valuable discovery, however, is a stone-wall fortification that protected the village from the west.

Ornate Thracian Chariot Found in Bulgaria

The ornamental chariot is about four feet wide with its wheels.

Archaeologists unearth the chariot at the site of the Thracian aristocrat's tomb.

 
Archaeologists have unearthed an elaborately decorated 1,800-year-old chariot at an ancient Thracian tomb in southeastern Bulgaria.

"The lavishly ornamented four-wheel chariot dates back to the end of the second century AD.," Veselin Ignatov, who heads the excavation, told The Associated Press from the site near the village of Karanovo.

The bronze-plated wooden chariot is decorated with scenes from Thracian mythology, including figures of a jumping panther and the carving of a mythological animal with the body of a panther and the tail of a dolphin. With wheels, it measures four feet across. It was found during excavations in a funerary mound believed to be the grave of a wealthy Thracian aristocrat.

First mentioned in Homer's Iliad as allies of Troy, the Thracians were an Indo-European nomadic people who settled in the Balkans 5,000 years ago. They were conquered by Rome in the 1st century and were assimilated by invading Slav peoples in the 6th century. They had no written language, and so left no records. Fierce warriors and horse-breeders, the Thracians were also skilled goldsmiths. They established a powerful kingdom in the 5th century BC.

Click here for the Associated Press article.