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An ancient fortress which is 3,000 - 3,200 years old and was built with the so called Cyclopean masonry has been found by archaeologists in Bulgaria's Rhodope Mountains, near the town of Zlatograd and the border with Greece, and is taken as evidence that Ancient Thrace was part of the Mycenaean Civilization. The previously undetected fortress is roughly dated to 1,200 BC, i.e. to the time of Ancient Troy and the Trojan War. It is located near Zlatograd, Bulgaria's southernmost town, near the southern slopes of the Rhodope Mountains, in an area that is only about 20 kilometers away from...

An Ancient Thracian rock step pyramid with a rock sun temple dating back to 2500 BC has been identified in the Eastern Rhodope Mountains in Southern Bulgaria by an expedition of historians and thracologists. The Thracian pyramid in question was shaped out of the natural rocks in the mountain near the town of Kovil, Krumovgrad Municipality, Kardzhali District. It is about 15 meters tall, and consists of five stepped terraces, with the sun temple hacked into the rocks inside it, according to Prof. Vasil Markov, a historian specializing in the civilization of Ancient Thrace. Markov is the head of the University...

Hopeful eyes look on as thousands of candles and the lighted crosses of a dozen tiny chapels dot the chilly nightscape at Krastova Gora, a holy site high up in Bulgaria's Rhodope mountains."I've had a stroke. That's why I came here. For help!" said Yanko Dimitrov, 65, one of the many who have come to the sacred site... But the big day is September 14 -- the Orthodox Christian feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. According to local legend, spending the night out here on the eve of the feast can do miracles and cure all illness. Mariana...

Orpheus Tomb Discovered? Updated on: 29.06.2007, 17:51 Published on: 29.06.2007, 17:46 Author: Olga Yoncheva Orpheus sanctuary in Rhodope mountains is with thousand years older than the Egyptian pyramids. The sensational discovery was made by an archaeological expedition which investigated the temple of the Thracians near the village of Tatul, informed BNT. The scientists found 6000-year old buildings with preserved tools made of semi-precious stones, crockery, animal remains. According to the archaeologists now it can be claimed that this is the Tomb of Orpheus, which has been visited of thousands of pilgrims from around the antique world. The sanctuary is one...

Unearthing Bulgaria’s Golden Age By Nicholas Glass Published: December 2 2005 15:09 December 2 2005 15:09 There was nothing unusual about the village shop in the depths of the countryside, 75 miles east of Sofia. What astonished the young archaeologists wanting cigarettes was the shopkeeper’s jewellery. Her necklace and earrings were exquisite: the beads so small and perfectly worked that her customers assumed they were modern, the gold of a high carat. But how could a shopkeeper afford such trinkets in a country where the average monthly salary is £100? The archaeologists didn’t know it but the shopkeeper’s jewellery was...

East Bulgaria Reveals Minoan Pertainence 18 January 2005, Tuesday. The Eastern Rhodopes revealed an old-times funeral site obviously pertaining to an ancient Crete-Micenae cult dating 3,500 years ago. The demographic researcher Mincho Gumarov of Kardzhali has donated the local museum with unique finds of ceramics, bronze and silver. The artifacts from the late bronze epoch were found in the nearby Samara cave. The find's pertainence to the epoch of legendary Micenae derives from the found labris (short two-face ritual axe, characteristic of that civilisation) and a silver amulet of the cult to Mother Earth, as well as pieces of surgery...