Projects and conferences

Projects and conferences

Archaeological excavations

With Ordinance № 80 from 07.04.2006 of the Council of Ministers, the archaeological Museum Plovdiv was attributed the statute of a Regional Museum with scope of activity – the territory of the Plovdiv region.


Archaeological sites in process of research
Thracian town center with a royal residence

Thracian town center with a royal residence

5/14/2009 12:00:00 AM

UNIQUE THRACIAN TEMPLE FOUND with ceramic roof and stone epistyles from the V th c. B. C.

The archaeological excavations in the oldest settlement from the classical times (VІ – V c. B. C.) continue near the village of V. Levski, Karlovo municipality with at its head senior researcher K. Kisiov PhD and scientific researcher Desislava Davidova from the Regional Archeological Museum - Plovdiv. The funds for the survey are granted by the RAM - Plovdiv and with the collaboration of the Mayor of the village V. Levski Todor Botev. The expedition is focused in the eastern part of the settlement whose area is about 5 ha.

A sector of a solid fortress wall 50 m long was unearthed which is preserved to 1 - 1, 70 m heath and is thick 2 m. The wall was made of solid quadratic stone blocks and pebbles fixed with mood and clay. The masonry is opus emplektum, the foundation being of huge quadratic blocks of sandstone, laid on previously arranged foundations in the rocks.

At 2, 20 m below the level of the terrain, the archaeologists have found the foundations of the oldest Thracian temple in the Bulgarian lands dating from the VІ – V th c. B. C.

A stone triangular obelisk 1 m long belonging to the temple has been found. The temple it self was rectangular built at its foundations of quadratic stone and of open wooden construction, which has been covered with flat and curved tiles size 60 x 40 cm. This building approach has been very rarely used and can be seen mainly with buildings that have been related to the kings in Ancient Thrace. According to the archaeologists all the tiles, the flat and the curved, have been guilt.

The finds from the surveyed sectors of the settlement consist of local Thracian ceramics, imported Greek utensils with black figures and amphoras used for the import of wine from the islands of Thassos and Samos, different clay elements for spindles and a vertical loom, jewelry, glass beads etc.

According to the responsible for the survey – senior researcher K. Kisiov PhD, the Thracian settlement near the village V. Levski was most probably an administrative and political centre for some of the earliest kings of the Odryss Kingdom from the end of VІ – beginning of the V th c. B. C., where used to live itinerant Greek builders who were often hired by the Thracian kings for the construction of tombs or fortifications. The names of ten Thracian settlements having belonged to different Thracian kings, so far unknown, are mentioned in Ancient Greek sources. The archaeologists consider that they have found one of the earliest Thracian centres with a royal residence and a temple.

According to the Ancient Greek historians the Odryss king Sitalk has established contacts with Athens in 431. The many imported goods that were found during the excavations near the village V. Levski show that a long time before Sitalk, some of the Odryss kings from Ancient Thrace had commercial and political contacts with Athens and with other Ancient Greek polises. The archaeologists are not still able to announce the name of this centre and the name of its founder but they hope to find a written decree or an inscription, that would shed light on the still little known history of Ancient Thrace.





Philippopolis
Philippopolis
7/26/2010 12:00:00 AM
On the territory of the ancient Philippopol the Regional Archeological Museum in Plovdiv makes archeology excavations.
Odryssian kings’ burial mounds
5/14/2009 12:00:00 AM
Odryssian kings’ burial mounds, near the village of Chernozem, Kaloyanovo district