During the first millennium the ancient Thracians were among the most numerous peoples in Europe. Separated into various tribes they inhabited the eastern parts of the Balkan peninsula as well as some of the territories of north-west Asia Minor. Among the most powerful tribal groups were the Odrysi in southeastern Thrace, the Bessi in the Rhodopi region, the Getae in the north-eastern regions, the Triballi in today’s northwestern Bulgaria and the Vitinni in Asia Minor. In the fertile Thracian valleys agriculture was highly developed, while stock-breeding played an important role in the mountainous regions. Vine-growing was of extreme importance - the Thracians were famous for their love for wine. They bred varoius breeds of cattle and small farm animals; horse-breeding was well developed. Hunting and fishing were very important for them. The Thracians are also well-known for their skills at different crafts - oremining, metal-working, pottery, leather-working, wood-working. The majority of the population inhabited small villages. Fortresses were built to protect them from hostile attacks, in which the Thracians hid not only their household belongings but their cattle as well. War was a constant companion in their life. Their army consisted mainly of infantrymen and horsemen equipped with light weapons.
The most characteristic and the best known form archaeological findings expressions of Thracian culture are the rich burials, often in monumental tombs and under majestic tumuli. The number of Thracian tumuli in Bulgaria is between 10 000 and 60 000. The rich tumulus burials have been studied in the mounds near the village of Duvanli, Plovdiv district, the Mogilanska mound in Vratza and in many other places. One of the most impressive is the tumulus near the village of Mezek, Svilengrad region. The tombs near Kazanlak and in the village of Sveshtari, Isperih region are famous for their mural paintings. The Thracian treasures which we find today reveal the wealth of the aristocracy and the specific religious rituals. One of the most impressive collection is the Panagyurishte gold treasure which consists of 9 gold vessels with sumptuous decorations of figured compositions. The biggest treasure so far is the Rogozen treasure, which consists of 165 silver vessels, most of which richly ornamented. The treasure found near the village of Borovo, Rousse district offers only 5 silver vessels, but of magnificent workmanship. Silver decorations for horse accoutrements with interesting figural images are found in the treasures in Lukovit and Letnitza.
Haskovo was founded as a settlement more than 7 thousand years ago and has a rich historical heritage. In the vicinity and within the boundaries of Haskovo there are well preserved traces of numerous Pre-historic, Thracian, Thracian-Roman, late ancient and medieval settlements. In December, 2000, a team of archaeologists, led by Dr. George Kitov, made one of the most significant discoveries in Bulgarian archaeology in the mound “Roshavata Chuka�, near the village of Alexandrovo. Entering through the opening made by the looters, the scientists found themselves in a Thracian tomb from the 4th century BC, with incredibly well preserved mural paintings. The very first examination revealed that the artistic decoration is unique, unparalleled so far among the other discovered constructions of this type. The architecture of the tomb is impressive, and by its dimensions it can be a rival to the most monumental tombs discovered on our lands. The mound is very near the village and is outlined against the scenery as a beautiful hill, surrounded by meadows and woods. The height of the tumulus hill is about 15 meters and the diameter exceeds 70 meters. From its eastern periphery a 14-meter long corridor leads successively to rectangular and round chambers.
The structure played the role of a temple and a mausoleum. The low corridor and the two entrances made the pilgrim visitor bend low to pass through them, only to discover a world of colours and figures, vegetation and geometrical motifs, images of people riders and walkers, domestic and wild animals. They are depicted surprisingly realistically; they bear exceptional scientific and artistic value and have an inimitable impact on us. The tomb in Alexandrovo ranks among the biggest constructions of this type found so far. However, it is its wall paintings that make it unique. The mural paintings cover completely the round and the rectangular chambers and a small part of the corridor. Hunting and war scenes, scenes of burial feasts succeed each other, followed by alternating monochrome sections with ornamental friezes. Above the entrance of the round chamber the war scene depicts a fighting between a horse rider and an infantryman.
The wall paintings in the round burial chamber are most varied and the richest. The chamber is decorated with six horizontal belts, one above the other. Two of them have figural decoration. The best preserved is the belt with the images of hunting scenes. The images of the riders are of particular importance and have a high scientific value. The shapes of the weapons enrich our knowledge of Thracian armaments. The figures of the horses impress with their detailed ammunition, which has golden, silver and bronze applications. Their positions on the belly-bands, the saddles and the horses’ breasts have and important meaning for the understanding of already known sets. There are unknown so far decorations for forehead and nose in the form of a very prolonged axe. Similar decorations have been known from several finds in Bulgaria and have been defined as applications for shields. The similar decoration which was found in Starosel is part of ornaments for horse ammunitions, which has not been announced for a long time for certain. After the wall paintings have been discovered this is accepted undoubtedly as a fact.
The tomb has a 14 meter long corridor. The entrance is from the East and its facade was destroyed in the ancient times. It is built of stone square plates with a dry joint. The height and the width of the corridor change. The roof is covered with roughly hewed stone plates. The corridor leads to the rectangular chamber with dimensions 1.92/1.5 m., situated north-south. The roof structure has the form of a trapezium. The passage between the corridor and the antechamber is rectangular with a height of 1.20 m. and width 0.70m. The entrance provides access to the round chamber. Its diameter at the lower part is 3.30 m. and its height is 3.40 m. Its doom is bell-shaped and the narrowing begins from the floor. The ritual bed is adjacent to the southern periphery, built of stone blocks. When the tomb was discovered it had already been destroyed. In the narrow side walls east and west there were stone „pillows“. The preserved traces of plaster on some of the stones prove that the bed had a picturesque decoration.
The passage between the round and the rectangular chambers was closed by a two-winged stone door, destroyed during one of the numerous looters’ intrusions. One of the wings was found completely preserved, while the other was broken in pieces. These pieces have remains of plaster, painted in red. The door was locked by a complex mechanism, of which only one bronze hoop has remained. The round and the rectangular chambers are built of finely hewed stone blocks with a dry joint, on top of which there is a layer of plaster and on which the painting is done. The rough construction of the corridor, its partial painting only in its west end, in front of the antechamber, are in contrast with the precise construction technique applied for the two chambers. Even the plaster on which the picturesque layer of the dromos was painted is not levelled to the west in vertical straight line, instead it is slanting unevenly, which leaves the impression that something has made the builders and the painter hurry. The reasons for that remain unknown.
The six belts of rich wall paintings which decorate the round chamber of the tomb strike with their refinement and realism. They are interesting with the fact that in one of them was made one of the most intriguing discoveries in the tomb. This is the red coloured monochrome belt where we can see the image of an young man in his left profile, engraved with a sharp object. Above the image there is an inscription with Greek letters, which can be read as „Kodzimases Hrestos“. According to the interpretation the first word is a personal name of Thracian origin and the second word is a byname, which means skilful, capable, competent. So the inscription can be interpreted as Kodzimases, the Master, and the drawing is a self-portrait of the painter, who had painted the tomb and had written his name. Above the red belt there is a geometrical frieze which consists of connected swastikas, painted white and red. At the bottom it is bordered with a cima Ionic, at the top - a narrow white strip with red dots in it.
Just above it follows the well preserved figural frieze which depicts royal hunting scenes. Hunting is one of the most popular scenes in Thracian art. It can be seen in dozens of monuments, jewellery, vessels, votive tablets, etc. According to the concepts of the ancient Thracian people the order in the universe can be established by a victory over the forces of the chaos. By conquering the boar - an embodiment of chaos - the ruler restores the world order and acquires a new, higher status. Four horsemen are depicted on white background, accompanied by walkers, attacking boars and deer. They ride horses of different colour - grey, yellow, white and red. The first three gallop to the left and only the horseman of the red horse - to the right. The idea of the painter is to distinguish precisely this figure and this is also obvious from the fact that unlike the other three horses, his horse has a leopard fur cloak over its back - a proof of the higher status. Another feature is that the other horsemen gallop after the animals, attacking them from behind, while he attacks the boar frontally. There are good reasons to accept that this is the image of the heroic ruler, buried in the tomb. The images of the other horsemen are no less interesting. They wear clothes of different colours, attack the chased animals with spears, swords hanging from their belts. The accompanying walkers also wear clothes and attack the animals with different weapons, some of which have not been known so far. Together with the hunters a dozen of dogs participate in the hunting - black, yellow and white. If the horseman riding the red horse is the ruler, then who are the remaining three horsemen, pictured on the frieze of the round chamber? Logically and visually we can differentiate four separate scenes, independent of each other. It is very likely that the painter had presented only the ruler at different moments of his life. Yet, another, more simplified and more profane interpretation is also possible - the king is depicted during a hunting, accompanied by his companions, representatives of the Thracian aristocracy.
The style of the painter is exceptionally realistic, he has shown even the smallest details of garments, armaments and the horse trappings. Even the minor elements, such as the stitches on the clothes did not escape his attention. Above the hunting frieze there is a cima belt, which borders it from the upper part of the dome. Initially it was painted yellow, but now it is almost entirely grey as a result of the natural aging processes. At the top of the dome the key stone has formed a plate with the shape of a flat disc. It is also painted, and it bears the coded symbols characteristic of Thracian religious concepts. The disc is divided into four sectors with different sizes. The eastern and the western are bigger and painted respectively in red and black. The red colour to the east symbolizes the sunrise, the day, the sun and the life; the black colour to the west stands for the sunset, the night, the death and the underground world. The two narrower sectors form a shape of a double axe which is a royal symbol and emphasizes the importance of the structure. The scenes from the round chamber show the stages on the road of the dead ruler and the ordeals he had to overcome to acquire his status of a hero and a demi-god. The first thing which the visitor to the tomb could see was a couple of fighting scenes at the bottom of the corridor and the rectangular chamber. The painter painted them to represent the war feats of the buried man, which is yet another argument in favour of his special status. Unfortunately these sectors of the wall paintings are seriously damaged. The details have been lost, but still the images are clear enough to be interpreted as a story line. The courage and the military merits of the ruler are emphasized in the wall paintings in the north wall of the corridor. Here he attacks, armed with a spear and a big round shield a naked walker who runs in panic, looking backward.
The Museum of Thracian Art in the Eastern Phodopes near the village of Alexandrovo has been built as a result of a program of the Japanese government and a Japanese grant for cultural programs. The construction of the museum began in February, 2008 and it was officially opened on May, 15th, 2009 by Their Royal Highnesses Prince and Princess Akishino. The new Museum of Thracian Art has an overall area of 834 sq.m. and it is located very near the mound with the original tomb. One part of the building is designed for a rich museum exposition and a replica of the tomb. The other part is a specialized modern research center with laboratories, equipped with the latest technology for restoration and conservation. The museum has storage facilities and audio-visual conference hall for conferences, round tables and other events connected with the research of Thracian culture.
The permanent exposition of the Museum reveals information about the tomb in the context of Thracian culture from the period of its flowering during the V - II c. BC. The visitors can follow the story of its discovery and research, can get acquainted with the interpretation of the wall paintings. Thracian cultural heritage in the region is represented by small cultural monuments from the time of the late Iron Age (VI - I c. BC). Visitors can also see the most remarkable archaeological monuments in the Eastern Rhodopes, Sakar mountain and the valley of the Maritza river. In addition to the replica of the tomb in Alexandrovo with its unique wall paintings, which is a candidate for the status UNESCO monument, the Museum of the Thracian Art exhibits for the first time a gold treasure, which dates back to around the years 4500 - 4000 BC. The jewellery, which are analogical to the objects found in the Varna necropolis, are the oldest finds of processed gold in Europe.
A central place in the exposition of the museum occupies the replica of the tomb. The restorers have reproduced in details the original structure. The architectural elements and the wall paintings are reproduced precisely in scale 1:1. There is only one deviation from the original - the low corridor is interrupted in the middle in order to ease the access of the visitors. They can walk around the whole tomb and to get acquainted with the way it was built, used by the Thracian people. The casing of the structure is partially restored, its purpose was to bear some of the enormous pressure of the mound hill and to facilitate the construction. The wall paintings from the original have been reproduced with exact preciseness and great skill. This magnificent composition of pictures is a valuable source of information for the life and the culture of the Thracian peoples. The replica gives the visitors an exciting opportunity to get in touch with this remarkable symbol of Thracian art, to feel the atmosphere of a remote epoch, to appreciate the skills of the ancient master.
Among the exhibits in the museum the 98 gold applications from the Copper-Stone Age (4500 - 4000 BC) are undoubtedly the most interesting. They were found in the north part of Sakar mountain, made of native gold and with a semi-spheric shape with an opening to be sewed to the garment. Together with the gold jewellery from the Varna necropolis and the necklace from the village of Hotnitza, this is the oldest processed gold in Europe discovered so far. Such a treasure has been discovered for the first time in the lands on the south of the Balkans. The exhibited 283 beads for a necklace are made of Meditteranean scallop shell Spondilus. The beads are of most various shapes - cylindrical, bi-conical, disc, etc. Like the gold jewels, they date back to the CopperStone Age (4500-4000 BC). Extremely interesting is the set of jewels from the Bronze Age which date back to around 2500 years BC. They represent a necklace of 53 beads, silver casts of different shapes and dimensions, together with two silver ear-rings in the shape of a crescent.
The Eastern Rhodopes and Sakar mountain are a real treasure-house of Thracian megalith monuments. They are made of huge stone blocks or cut in the rocks in picturesque areas, sometimes located on high mountain peaks, the monuments are the “identity card“ of the religious concepts of the ancient Thracian people. The monuments were created in the period of XII - VI c. BC, but some of them were used in later times. The places where they are located have been inhabited and worshiped
in the course of millennia. Perperikon is an archaeological complex which had developed in time from a huge megalith cult center into a town and a fortress. It is quite possible that it resembled the famous ancient sanctuary of Dionysius, of the Thracian tribe Satrae, whose oracular clan were the Bessi. The discovered acropolis is fortified by a wall of huge stone blocks and is situated in the highest part of the hill, together with the palace, cut in the rocks, which consists of two wings - northern and southern, with dwelling places, temples and graves. Life on that place had been going on for more than six millennia - from the Stone-Copper Age - the end of the 5th millennium BC to the XIV century.
The rock sanctuary in the village of Tatul is one of the most important Thracian monuments in the Eastern Rhodopes. The earliest traces of human activity here date back to the Stone-Copper Age (end of 5th and beginning of 6th millennia BC). The rock cuttings and the forming of the rock graves and stairs were made by the Thracian people in the second millennium BC. Life had continued here in the course of centuries. Archaeologists have revealed remains of constructions from Hellenic times, from the period of the Roman rule, the late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The Thracian sanctuary center in the village of Malko Gradishte is situated in the area of “Gluhite Kamani“. Numerous cult niches, a staircase and a large basin are cut in several rock peaks, at whose foot is a preserved tomb, next to which there is another incomplete one. In front of them can be seen the ruins of early Christian basilica. The earliest objects discovered so far date back to the X - IX century BC. Life had been going on here endlessly to the late Middle Ages.
In the region of the Eastern Rhodopes 12 Thracian tombs have been found. They all have a specific architectural plan, way of construction and material which was used. The wealth of the deposited gifts in them is a proof of the high social and economic status of the people who were buried in them, representatives of Thracian aristocracy. The tomb in the village of Mezek is the most monumental of all domed Thracian tombs discovered. It is constructed of stone blocks with imposing dimensions. It was built in the second half of the IV century BC. The burial gifts include a number of objects made of gold, silver, bronze, etc. In the vicinity of the mound a bronze figure of a boar in correct proportions has been found. The tomb in Kazanlak has relatively small dimensions. It has an antechamber, corridor and a round chamber with a dome. Unlike the tomb in Alexandrovo, it was built of bricks. Here again remarkable frescoes cover the corridor and the dome. The scenes depicted in them enrich our knowledge of mythology and the Thracian art from the first quarter of the 3rd century BC.
Haskovo region is ricH in cultural and Historic monuments from different ages 1. Thracian dolmen - Hlyabovo - Ist millennium B.C. 2. Thracian menhir - Ovcharovo - Ist millennium B.C. 3. Thracian rock tomb - Pchelari - Ist millennium B.C. 4. Thracian cromlech - Dolni Glavanak - Ist millennium B.C. 5. Thracian recesses - Dolno Cherkovishte - Ist millennium B.C. 6. Rock basin - Madzharovo - Ist millennium B.C. 7. Thracian sanctuary - Malko Gradishte - Ist millennium B.C. 8. Thracian tomb - Alexandrovo - IVth c. B.C. th 9. Thracian tomb - Mezek - IV c. B.C. - Dromos 10. Thracian sanctuary - Kasnakovo - IInd - IIIrd c. A.D. 11. Mosaic - villa Armira - Ivaylovgrad - IInd - IVth c.
12. Rock church - Matochina - Xth c. 13. Rock church - Mihalich - Xth c. 14. Medieval fortress - Mezek - XIth c. 15. Medieval fortress - Matochina - XIth c. 16. Medieval fortress Lyutitsa - Ivaylovgrad - XIIIth c. 17. Medieval fortress - Gugutka - XIIth c. th 18. Aterrainian bridge - Ivaylovgrad - XIV - XVth c. 19. The Maritsa river bridge - Svilengrad - 1529 20. The Paskalevs’ house - Haskovo - the middle of XIXth c. 21. The Shishmanovs’ house - Haskovo - the middle of XIXth c. 22. “The Assumption” church - Uzundzhovo - 1500
the materials which have been used are provided by the regional History museum in Haskovo with the cooperation of the archaeologist irko petrov.
Haskovo municipality 1, obshtinski sq. Haskovo 6300 Bulgaria tel.: +359 38 603 300 fax: +359 38 662 424 e-mail: kmet@haskovo.bg
www.haskovo.bg