A TEAM of Bulgarian archaeologists, led by Professor Georgi Kitov, discovered a 2400-year old golden mask in the tomb of an ancient Thracian king on August 19.

The mask bears the image of a human face and is made of 500 grams of solid gold, Kitov said. The discovery was made near the town of Shipka, in the heart of the Stara Planina Mountain.

Dozens of Thracian mounds are spread throughout this region, which archeologists have called "the Bulgarian valley of the kings", a reference to the Valley of the Kings near Luxor, which is home to the tombs of Egyptian Pharaohs.

"The unique mask looks even better than the famous image of King Agamemnon, the Greek anti-hero described by Homer in the Iliad," Kitov was quoted as saying by Bulgarian-language media. "This is the first Thracian mask of solid gold ever found," he said. Previously, archeologists had only found masks covered with golden foil.

Initially, Kitov suggested that the mask could belong to King Seuthes III, the Thracian king who in the fifth century BCE ruled the territory that now is in today's Bulgaria. Later however, he and his team changed their view, and said the mask is most probably of King Teres I, father of the famous Thracian ruler Sitalkes, who expanded the Thracian kingdom into a huge empire, uniting for the first time all Thrace south of the river Danube.

The tomb was covered with six stone slabs, each weighing at least two tons. The king's remains have not yet been found, but excavations at the tomb will continue. In addition to the golden mask, archeologists discovered a golden ring with the image of a rower, as well as many bronze and silver vessels.

The current find is in the area of the so-called Helvetia Tomb, discovered in 1996, which also dates back to the 4th century BCE. It is also near the town of Shipka. The Shipka Tombs are seven in total, all in the Valley of the Thracian Kings.

Also close is the Kazanluk Tomb, which is famous for its beautiful wall paintings of the early third century BCE, one of the most unique masterpieces of the Early Hellenistic pictorial art. This tomb was built during the reign of king Seuthes III, either for him personally or for close relatives among the nobility.

Thirty-five Thracian tombs have so far been discovered in Bulgaria and all of them have pre-classical vaults (false vaults) made during the period fifth to the third centuries BCE.

The plans of this type of tomb were varied. Some of them, apart from the burial chamber, contain a corridor and other rooms. Fifteen of the tombs found in Bulgaria have round burial chambers. The rest have square burial chambers.

The round chambers were roofed with a false beehive dome, while the square ones had a flat roof or a false vault. The tombs were made of ashlars with dry joints, or of bricks and mortar.









Who were The Thracians?



For two thousand years possibly a million Thracians lived in the area now covered by Romania, Bulgaria, North-Eastern Greece, and North-Western Turkey. They never progressed beyond a tribal Homeric society, and were constantly at war with one another and their neighbours. They were renowned for their love of song, music, dance, colourful clothing, wine, religion, and war. They produced incredibly beautiful and expensive art. Orpheus, Ares (the god of war), and Boreas (the god of the destructive north wind) are all considered to be Thracian. Here is a brief account of who were they...

The recent discovery of a priceless golden mask of a Thracian ruler inspired serious interest in Bulgaria and abroad.

However, except for a few scientists outside the borders of this country, not many people know who the Thracians were.

Very often their origin is traced back to Ancient Greece and they are considered just one of the Greek tribes or part of the city state system. Such views stem from the fact that some famous characters from Ancient Greek mythology have their origins in Thrace.

Although the Thracians were mentioned by many classical sources including the Histories of Herodotus (445-440 BCE) and the Anabasis of Xenophon (401-399 BCE), they remained relatively obscure until the early twentieth century.

Thracians were a conglomerate of numerous tribes. According to historian Dimitar Markovski, the formation of the Thracian tribal community significantly precedes the emergence of the other Indo-European communities - such as the Roman, the Celtic, the German, the Slavic and the Scandinavian. The ancestors of the Thracians had lived on the Balkan Peninsula as far back as the later part of the Stone Age.

Experts use the term "Proto-Thracians" to describe the inhabitants of an extensive area in South-Eastern Europe during the third and second millennium BCE. The name "Thracians" first appeared at the end of the second millennium BCE. From that time on, this term gradually became the common title for the inhabitants of the area between the Carpathians and the Aegean Sea, the Black Sea and the valleys of the Morava and Vardar rivers.

They spoke related or similar dialects of a common language. During the 12th and 11th centuries BCE, Thracians settled not only on the peninsular mainland and the Mediterranean islands, but also moved south-eastwards into Asia Minor. Thracians took part in the Trojan War. Homer recorded that the Thracian King Rezos appeared before the walls of Troy with the most handsome and well-built horses, whiter than snow and fleet as deer.

According to Herodotus, Thracians were countless. It is currently thought that there were four times as many Thracians living between the Danube and the Aegean Sea, as in the rest of the combined Greek city -states, during the first millenium BCE.

The biggest state alliance of the Thracians, the state of Odrys, existed from the beginning of the fifth century BCE until the beginning of the third century BCE. Its first capital was situated somewhere along the lower reaches of the Maritsa River. In mid-fourth century BCE, this state disintegrated into three smaller alliances of which the one with the capital of Seuthopolis (in the area of present-day Kazanluk) survived longest.

How the Thracians titled their ruler is unknown (other Greek city states named their kings 'basileus' and the state 'basileia'). The state ruler had a council of representatives of the tribal aristocracy. The taxes from the Thracian tribes within the state were levied in gold and silver as well as in the form of gifts such as cloth and other articles. A dragon was depicted on the standard of the Thracians.

In the first decade of the sixth century, the Persians invaded Thrace and made it part of the satrapy of Skudra. However, their control was rather loose, and many Thracians resisted Xerxes' invasion during following decade. As a result, few Thracians fought with the Persians at Plataea.

After Plataea, the Persians retreated from Thrace except for a few coastal cities, from which the Athenians later ejected them. During the Peloponnesian War, Thrace was an ally of Athens. Attempts by the Spartans to change this failed, and some Spartan ambassadors on their way to Persia were murdered when they got to Thrace.

Teres I (450-431BCE), of the Odrysian tribe, was the first Thracian king to forge a powerful kingdom, which was based in today's Central Thracian Plain (covering areas in Southern Bulgaria and Northern Greece). His son Sitalkes (431-424 BC) expanded this into a huge empire, uniting for the first time all Thrace south of the Danube.

This great kingdom of the Odrysians covered the area from the Strymon River (today's Struma in Bulgaria) to the Black Sea and from the Aegean to the Danube. Sitalkes became very rich - his annual income was about half that of the Athenian empire at its height.

In late autumn 429 BCE, in response to an Athenian request for help, Sitalkes' 150 000 warriors poured into Macedonia, carrying all before them. Travelling with the army were Amyntas, the nephew of the Macedonian king Perdiccas, and Hagnon, an Athenian general. Sitalkes proposed to install Amyntas as the new King of Macedonia, while Hagnon was to command the allied Athenian fleet and army.

However, Sitalkes had reached the Chalcidian peninsula to find that no Athenian army and fleet awaited him. This was because, as Thucydides wrote, the Athenians did not expect Sitalkes to fulfill his promise to attack the Chalcidian cities.

Without the Athenians, Sitalkes was unable to take the Chalcidian cities. At the same time, as his army was running short of food and suffering from cold, he opened negotiations with Perdicaas.

Perdicaas bribed Sitalkes' nephew and second in command, Seuthes, to advise a retreat. Sitalkes took Seuthes' advice, and, after only thirty days, the campaign ended. Sitalkes died a few years later during a battle with a fierce north-western Thracian tribe, the Triballi. Seuthes later married Perdicaas' daughter and succeeded Sitalkes, but was unable to keep Sitalkes' empire intact.

Phillip II of Macedonia, father of Alexander the Great, invaded Thrace during his rule (359 - 336 BCE) and made the whole of the region a Macedonian tributary. Thracians were ruled by Philip, Alexander, Lysimachus and by subsequent Greek kings, whose rule lasted essentially until Roman intervention in the mid-second century BCE.

A courageous and daring people, the Thracians were employed as mercenaries in the armies of various rulers as early as the Hellenic epoch, later in the Roman auxiliary troops, and from the second century onwards in the legions.

The great slave uprising in the Roman empire (74-71 BCE) may also be attributed to Thracian history. Some consider that the leader and military commander Spartacus was a Thracian.

Thracians were an intergral part of the evolution of ancient Mediterranean civilisation (Hellenic and Roman). The Thracian cultural heritage has left many wonderful examples of gold, silver and bronze ornaments, tools and arms, household objects and vessels.