The St. Petar / St. Peter Island (front) and the St. Ivan / St. John Island (back) near Sozopol on Bulgaria's Black Sea coast. Photo: Burgas Regional Museum of History
Posted on 10/18/2020 6:04:24 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
The St. Ivan ("St. John") Island is located about 900 meters away from the closest point on the Bulgarian mainland, the Stolets Peninsula (Cape Stolets, or Scamnia) in the town of Sozopol. The St. Peter Island, which is really small, is roughly the same distance from the coast, and only 50 meters away from the St. Ivan Island.
The town of Sozopol itself is the modern-day successor of ancient Apollonia Pontica (Sozopolis), an Ancient Greek colony dating back to the 6th century BC, on the western Black Sea coast which was inhabited by Ancient Thracians.
The St. Ivan Island is the largest from Bulgaria's several small islands in the Black Sea. It is best known for the discovery of the relics of St. John the Baptist in 2010, with the excavations there yielding new finds such as the 2015 discovery of a tomb possibly containing the bones of the monastery founder, a Syrian monk who brought the relics.
The St. Peter Island next to it, however, had never been researched by archaeologists before the fall of 2020, the Burgas History Museum says...
Inside the mounds, the archaeologists have found fragments from pottery vessels such as amphorae, bowls, thick kitchen vessels, and ceramic vessels covered with red polish and black glaze.
A remarkable artifact found in the mounds is the bronze tip of a three-edged arrow...
During the Ottoman period Sozopol was often raided by Cossack pirates. In 1629, all Christian monasteries and churches in the city were burned down by the Ottoman Turks leading it to lose its regional role. In the Russian-Turkish War of 1828-1829, Sozopol was conquered by the navy of the Russian Empire, and was turned into a temporary military base.
(Excerpt) Read more at archaeologyinbulgaria.com ...
Both of those islands look rather forbidding.
Before Alexander.
The small one is about 175 yards from end to end...
Very cool.
Interesting...those two island looks nice...
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