”Thrace and the Thracians” by Alexander Fol and Ivan Marazov.
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DESCRIPTION: Hardcover with dustjacket. Publisher: St. Martin's Press (1977). Pages: 160. Size: 11¾ x 8½ x 1 inch; 1¾ pounds. Summary: The Thracians had no writing, nor did their kings keep records on tablets, papyri or parchment. Orpheus may have been just as great a poet as Homer, but his songs went unrecorded. And so "the people who were the most numerous on earth after the Indians" were unable to plead their cause before the bar of history. Greek and Roman historians wrote about them, but they allotted them a place on the fringe of the ancient world. So it is very difficult for us today to feel the spirit of the Thracians, to know their views of the world, their concept of life and their way of thinking.
It is not easy to get away from the Hellenocentric view of the ancient world, to sift the few precious grains of truth about the Thracians in the writings of the ancients and to see in an entertaining story a specific aspect of the Thracian concept of life. But ancient literature is not our only source of knowledge about the Thracians, who have bequeathed to us a rich and interesting art, the appreciation of which requires criteria other than those applicable to Greek art. We may admire its barbarian splendor, but we can never be sure that we have grasped its meaning; for its ideological substance is alien to the Greek and closer to that of Persian and Scythian art.
It is here that for the first time, the mysterious figure of the mounted Hero, that strange deity galloping through the ages, underlying symbol of the Thracian spirit, makes his appearance. To reach Thrace and the Thracians, to feel for a moment that you can penetrate the unfamiliar world of these mysterious people, you need to revive the spirit of their culture. Using new methods and spheres of research, the authors have raised part, at least, of the curtain to reveal the Thracians and their country as they really were.
CONDITION: LIKE NEW. Near new (merely flipped through) hardcover w/dustjacket. St. Martin's Press (1977) 160 pages. Inside the book is unblemished and pristine in every respect EXCEPT that the original owner (even if they did not read the book) found it necessary to place a paste down label with their name on it ("from the library of...") at the center of the first free page (that's the first, colored but unprinted, heavy stock page in the book, immediately following and facing the underside of the front cover). Except for that, the pages are clean, crisp, (otherwise) unmarked, unmutilated, tightly bound, and seemingly only lightly flipped through. Having inspected the book quite rigorously, I would guess that the original owner probably flipped through the book looking at the pictures (one or twice), then put the book away never to actualy be read through. The publisher's errata slip is still tucked inside the book! Except for the fact that the book has seemingly been flipped through once or twice, there's precious little to indicate the book was actually read through - if indeed it was, then it was by someone with an exceedingly light hand. From the outside the dustjacket evidences very faint edge and corner shelfwear. This is principally in the form of faint crinkling to the dustjacket spine head and heel, as well as even fainter crinkling to the open dustjacket corners (or "tips" as they are oftentimes referred to). The "tips" of course are formed where the dustjacket folds beneath the covers to form the dustjacket flaps, i.e., the "open corners" of the dustjacket (top and bottom, front and back). And by "faint", we mean precisely that, literally. It requires that you hold the book up to a light source, tilting it this way and that so as to catch the reflected light, and scrutinize it quite intently to discern the very, very faint shelfwear. Beneath the dustjacket the full-cloth black-colored covers are unblemished and without discernible shelfwear except that as with the dustjacket, the spine head and heel as well as the cover "tips" evidence very faint crinkling. Except for the fact that the original owner neatly placed a paste-down label on the book's first free page, the overall condition is otherwise is not too far distant from what might otherwise pass as "new", but "shop worn" stock from an open-shelf book store (such as Barnes & Noble, or B. Dalton, for instance) wherein patrons are permitted to browse open stock, and so otherwise "new" books often might evidence faint handling/shelf/browsing wear, if nothing else simply from routine handling. Satisfaction unconditionally guaranteed. In stock, ready to ship. No disappointments, no excuses. PROMPT SHIPPING! HEAVILY PADDED, DAMAGE-FREE PACKAGING! Selling rare and out-of-print ancient history books on-line since 1997. We accept returns for any reason within 30 days! #9000g.
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PUBLISHER REVIEWS:
REVIEW: Prior to the second world war, Thracian studies were regarded with a certain degree of condescension, despite the fact that eminent European scholars had made considerable contributions to the field. This was largely because attention had been concentrated on Greece and Rome to the detriment of their neighbors, and also because the ideas of the German historiographic school, shifting the whole weight of research on to the role of the carriers of the powerful Indo-European civilizations, were so firmly entrenched.
In the post-war period however, this attitude has gradually changed, largely owing to the general advance in the materialistic philosophy of history, but also to the efforts of a number of scholars, among whom Bulgarian scientists hold a distinguished place. So it was natural that Bulgaria should become the center of Thracian studies. The country’s new government provided equipment and funds for training and over the past thirty years the number of specialists in the Bulgarian historical sciences, including ancient studies and archaeology, has increased many times over.
Bulgaria literally teems with ancient relics and archaeological excavation is proceeding apace. Government concern has given rise to an entire generation of devoted researchers, endeavoring to see things Thracian from an angle untrammeled by archaic concepts and prejudices. Many scientists in various countries are now engaged in studying ancient Thrace. The research carried on in the USSR and Romania is particularly useful and has yielded fine results. Work along these lines is also proceeding apace in other Balkan countries. Turkey and Greece have set up special groups for the purpose. Thracian studies are pursued in Italy, France, Holland, Britain, the USA, and elsewhere.
Now in several countries the general public has had, or will have, the opportunity of seeing and admiring works by ancient Thracian masters, as the exhibition “Thracian Treasures from Bulgaria” travels around the world. It has already been shown in Paris, Vienna, Moscow, Leningrad, and most recently in London. It will travel to the USA in 1977, and to other countries as well in the coming years.
REVIEW: Ivan Rousev Marazov born 15 March 1942 in Pirne, near Aytos, is a Bulgarian artist, culturologist, thracologist and politician. In 1996, Marazov was a candidate to become President of Bulgaria for the Bulgarian Socialist Party (with Irina Bokova as the vice-presidential candidate) and finished in second place.
REVIEW: Alexander Fol (born in Sofia, Bulgaria on July 3, 1933; died in Sofia on March 1, 2006) was a Bulgarian historian and Thracologist. In 1957, he studied history at the University of St. Kliment Ohridski in Sofia and earned a PhD in 1966. He worked as a university lecturer from 1972 and became a professor in 1975. From 1980 to 1986, he served as Minister of Culture and Education of Republic of Bulgaria. His research interests lay in classical Greek and Roman history, the cultural history of southeast Europe and Asia Minor, and Indo-European studies. He is best known for his contributions to Thracology.
In 1972, he established the Institute of Thracology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia, and became its first director until 1992. During this time he organized International Congresses of Thracology in Sofia, Bucharest, Vienna, Rotterdam, Moscow, and Palma de Mallorca. He was secretary-general of the International Council for Indo-European and Thracology Studies. He held a chair of Ancient History and Thracology at the University of Sofia between 1979 and 1987, and a chair of Cultural History of Southeastern Europe since 1991. He was the founder of the Bulgarian Research Institute in Vienna, and of the School for Antique Languages and Culture in Sofia (1977).
From 1983, he was director of archaeological excavations in the east Bulgarian village of Drama together with Jan Lichardus of the Institute of Prehistory and Early History at the Saarland University Saarbrücken (Germany). Fol was a member of the Accademia Medicea in Florence, Italy. Moreover, he was a member of the German Archaeological Institute, the Académie Maison in Paris, France and the Leibniz-Sozietaet in Berlin. He received numerous invitations as guest lecturer in England, the United States, Russia, Germany, Japan, Greece, Italy, Sweden, and France. His publications comprise twelve monographies on Thracian social history, as well as several articles in the field of Thracology.
REVIEW: Alexander Fol was a Bulgarian historian and Thracologist. In 1957 he studied history at the University of St. Kliment Ohridski in Sofia and earned a PhD in 1966. He worked as a university lecturer from 1972 and became a professor in 1975. He was also the former Minister of Culture and Education of Republic of Bulgaria.
REVIEW: Ivan Rousev Marazov was born 15 March 1942 in Pirne, near Aytos. He was a Bulgarian artist, culturologist, thracologist and politician. In 1996, Marazov was a candidate to become President of Bulgaria for the Bulgarian Socialist Party and finished in second place.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Preface.
General Introduction.
Thracian Religion.
Ideology of Kingship.
Thracian Art.
Origins and Historical Development.
Social and Political History.
Acknowledgements.
Bibliography.
Index.
PROFESSIONAL REVIEWS:
REVIEW: A solid text that's well worth reading. Ancient Thrace spanned an area that mostly falls within the borders of modern day Bulgaria, but it also included parts of Romania, Ukraine, Greece, Turkey, Moldova and Macedonia. As is so often the case with some ancient races such as the Scythians and Carthaginians, little is known about the Thracians. Their numerous tribes were warlike, often fighting with each other as well as with neighboring peoples.
We know that the Thracians were fierce warriors, who were fond of drinking, singing and horse racing. Their most prominent god was an enigmatic figure on a horse, a warrior who was often accompanied by a dog and a boar, but they also revered a mother goddess and Dionysus (named Bacchus by the Romans). They were a people who mostly lived in small settlements, ruled by king-priests, and whose horses were famed throughout the ancient world. It was common for Thracians to serve as mercenaries to foreign powers, among them Rome. Spartacus, one of the most famous figures in history, served in the Roman army before being enslaved.
Readers may first have reached for "The Thracians", the excellent Osprey title on the Thracians. This is a natural place to begin reading about this mysterious people. In my opinion, Fol and Marazov's book is the second book to reach for. To be fair, there aren't many others in English! That is, until June 2011, when the outstanding new text, "The Gods of Battle", was published. It has been written by Chris Webber, also the author of the Osprey book. Inside this volume, however, you'll find in depth coverage on Thracian religion, kingship and art. It also has chapters on the race's origins, historical development and social/political history. While the text is rather dense in places, the book gives many useful insights on the Thracians which are absent from the shorter Osprey volume. Well worth the purchase.
READER REVIEWS:
REVIEW: Ancient Thrace spanned an area that mostly falls within the borders of modern day Bulgaria, but it also included parts of Romania, Ukraine, Greece, Turkey, Moldova and Macedonia. As is so often the case with some ancient races such as the Scythians and Carthaginians, little is known about the Thracians. Their numerous tribes were warlike, often fighting with each other as well as with neighboring peoples. We know that the Thracians were fierce warriors, who were fond of drinking, singing and horse racing. Their most prominent god was an enigmatic figure on a horse, a warrior who was often accompanied by a dog and a boar, but they also revered a mother goddess and Dionysus (named Bacchus by the Romans).
They were a people who mostly lived in small settlements, ruled by king-priests, and whose horses were famed throughout the ancient world. It was common for Thracians to serve as mercenaries to foreign powers, among them Rome. Spartacus, one of the most famous figures in history, served in the Roman army before being enslaved. Readers may first have reached for The Thracians, the excellent Osprey title on the Thracians. This is a natural place to begin reading about this mysterious people. In my opinion, Fol and Marazov's book is the second book to reach for. To be fair, there aren't many others in English! That is, until June 2011, when the outstanding new text, The Gods of Battle , was published. It has been written by Chris Webber, also the author of the Osorey book.
Inside this volume, however, you'll find in depth coverage on Thracian religion, kingship and art. It also has chapters on the race's origins, historical development and social/political history. While the text is rather dense in places, the book gives many useful insights on the Thracians which are absent from the shorter Osprey volume. Well worth the purchase. [Ben Kane, author of “The Forgotten Legion”].
REVIEW: Quite remarkable catalogue chock full of amazing photos of exquisite artifacts. Good history and background information narrates the exhibits. This is a classic, and one of the few exhibitions which was devoted exclusively to the Thracians.
ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND:
ANCIENT THRACIANS: The indigenous population of ancient Thrace were Indo-Europeans who spoke their own language who archaeologists believe originated in the area of the Black Sea around 5,000 B.C. Thrace included areas of present day Bulgaria, Northeastern Greece, Eastern Serbia, portions of Macedonia, and portions of NorthWest Turkey. Divided into separate tribes, the Tracians did not form a lasting political kingdom until the Odrysian and Dacian States were founded in the early 4th century B.C. At its greatest it extended beyond the Danube to the North (Ancient Dacia and Pannonia, present day Moldova and Romania) and to Southern Russia and the Ukraine to the East. The Thracians were capable of wielding an army of 150,000, and threatened even regional powerhouse Macedonia until both were conquered by the Persians under Darius the Great.
The Thracians were to fall under the cultural influence of the ancient Greeks, though as non-Greek speakers, they were viewed by the Greeks (and subsequently the Romans) as barbarians. The Greeks founded Thracian colonies as early as the sixth century B.C. Homer’s Iliad records that the Thracians had agreed to fight on the side of the Mycenaean Greeks in the Trojan War. However according to the account the Thracians did not fulfill this promise. In the Odyssey, Odysseus and his men raided Thrace on their way back home from the war. This was to punish them for their "cowardice", as the Odyssey puts it. Many mythical figures, such as the god Dionysus, princess Europa, and the hero Orpheus were borrowed by the Greeks from their Thracian neighbors. The Thracians were described by Roman Historian Herodotus as the second most numerous of peoples, after the Indians, and potentially the most powerful, and he suggested that the extent of the lands they inhabited and controlled would have made them a vast empire, if they were united.
Thrace was to fall to the great Persian armies of Darius the Great in the late sixth century B.C., and subsequently to Alexander the Great in the fourth century B.C. Thereafter Thrace was ruled by the Macedonians until Macedonia was stripped of its territories after losing its third war with the Romans. After the conclusion of the “Third Macedonian War, Thrace was ruled directly by Rome as a client state. The successor of the Roman empire on the Balkans, the Byzantine (or Eastern roman) Empire retained control over Thrace until the beginning of the 9th century, after which time control of Thrace alternated between the Byzantine Empire and Bulgaria. However ultimately the Ottoman Turks conquered the region and held it for five centuries until the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire after the conclusion of World War I. Recently Bulgarian archaeologists have made monumental discoveries of Royal Thracian burials dating back to the fifth through third centuries B.C. in what has become known as Thracian Valley of the Kings.
ANCIENT THRACE: Thrace is a geographical and historical area in southeast Europe, now split between Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey, which is bounded by the Balkan Mountains to the north, the Aegean Sea to the south and the Black Sea to the east. It comprises southeastern Bulgaria (Northern Thrace), northeastern Greece (Western Thrace) and the European part of Turkey (Eastern Thrace). In antiquity, it was also referred to as "Europe", prior to the extension of the term to describe the whole continent. The name Thrace comes from the Thracians, an ancient Indo-European people inhabiting Southeastern Europe.
The region took the name of the principal river there, Hebros, probably from the Indo-European arg "white river" (the opposite of Vardar, meaning "black river"). According to an alternative theory, Hebros means "goat" in Thracian. In Turkey, it is commonly referred to as Rumeli, Land of the Romans, owing to this region being the last part of the Eastern Roman Empire that was conquered by the Ottoman Empire. The name appears to derive from an ancient heroine and sorceress Thrace, who was the daughter of Oceanus and Parthenope, and sister of Europa.
The historical boundaries of Thrace have varied. The ancient Greeks employed the term "Thrace" to refer to all of the territory which lay north of Thessaly inhabited by the Thracians, a region which "had no definite boundaries" and to which other regions (like Macedonia and even Scythia) were added. In one ancient Greek source, the very Earth is divided into "Asia, Libya, Europa and Thracia". As the Greeks gained knowledge of world geography, "Thrace" came to designate the area bordered by the Danube on the north, by the Euxine Sea (Black Sea) on the east, by northern Macedonia in the south and by Illyria to the west. This largely coincided with the Thracian Odrysian kingdom, whose borders varied over time.
After the Macedonian conquest, this region's former border with Macedonia was shifted from the Struma River to the Mesta River. This usage lasted until the Roman conquest. Henceforth, (classical) Thrace referred only to the tract of land largely covering the same extent of space as the modern geographical region. In its early period, the Roman province of Thrace was of this extent, but after the administrative reforms of the late 3rd century, Thracia's much reduced territory became the six small provinces which constituted the Diocese of Thrace. The medieval Byzantine theme of Thrace contained only what today is Eastern Thrace.
Ancient Greek mythology provides the Thracians with a mythical ancestor Thrax, the son of the war-god Ares, who was said to reside in Thrace. The Thracians appear in Homer's Iliad as Trojan allies, led by Acamas and Peiros. Later in the Iliad, Rhesus, another Thracian king, makes an appearance. Cisseus, father-in-law to the Trojan elder Antenor, is also given as a Thracian king. Homeric Thrace was vaguely defined, and stretched from the River Axios in the west to the Hellespont and Black Sea in the east.
The Catalogue of Ships mentions three separate contingents from Thrace: Thracians led by Acamas and Peiros, from Aenus; Cicones led by Euphemus, from southern Thrace, near Ismaros; and from the city of Sestus, on the Thracian (northern) side of the Hellespont, which formed part of the contingent led by Asius. Ancient Thrace was home to numerous other tribes, such as the Edones, Bisaltae, Cicones, and Bistones in addition to the tribe that Homer specifically calls the “Thracians”.
Greek mythology is replete with Thracian kings, including Diomedes, Tereus, Lycurgus, Phineus, Tegyrius, Eumolpus, Polymnestor, Poltys, and Oeagrus (father of Orpheus). Thrace is mentioned in Ovid's Metamorphoses, in the episode of Philomela, Procne, and Tereus: Tereus, the King of Thrace, lusts after his sister-in-law, Philomela. He kidnaps her, holds her captive, rapes her, and cuts out her tongue. Philomela manages to get free, however. She and her sister, Procne, plot to get revenge, by killing her son Itys (by Tereus) and serving him to his father for dinner. At the end of the myth, all three turn into birds – Procne into a swallow, Philomela into a nightingale, and Tereus into a hoopoe.
The indigenous population of Thrace was a people called the Thracians, divided into numerous tribal groups. The region was controlled by the Persian Empire at its greatest extent, and Thracian soldiers were known to be used in the Persian armies. Later on, Thracian troops were known to accompany neighboring ruler Alexander the Great when he crossed the Hellespont which abuts Thrace, during the invasion of the Persian Empire itself. The Thracians did not describe themselves by name; terms such as Thrace and Thracians are simply the names given them by the Greeks.
Divided into separate tribes, the Thracians did not form any lasting political organizations until the founding of the Odrysian state in the 4th century B.C. Like Illyrians, the locally ruled Thracian tribes of the mountainous regions maintained a warrior tradition, while the tribes based in the plains were purportedly more peaceable. Recently discovered funeral mounds in Bulgaria suggest that Thracian kings did rule regions of Thrace with distinct Thracian national identity. During this period, a subculture of celibate ascetics called the Ctistae lived in Thrace, where they served as philosophers, priests and prophets.
Sections of Thrace particularly in the south started to become hellenized before the Peloponnesian War as a significant amount of Athenian and Ionian colonies were set up in Thrace before the war and Spartan and other Doric colonists followed suit after the war. The special interest of Athens to Thrace is underlined by the numerous finds of Athenian silverware in Thracian tombs. In 168 B.C., after the Third Macedonian war and the subjugation of Macedonia to the Romans, Thrace also lost its independence and became tributary to Rome. Towards the end of the 1st century BC Thrace lost its status as a client kingdom as the Romans began to directly appoint their kings. This situation lasted until 46 A.D., when the Romans finally turned Thrace into a Roman province (Romana provincia Thracia).
During the Roman domination, within the geographical borders of ancient Thrace, there were two separate Roman provinces, namely Thrace ("provincia Thracia") and Lower Moesia ("Moesia inferior"). Later, in the times of Diocletian, the two provinces were joined and formed the so-called "Dioecesis Thracia". The establishment of Roman colonies and mostly several Greek cities, as was Nicopolis, Topeiros, Traianoupolis, Plotinoupolis and Hadrianoupolis resulted from the Roman Empire's urbanization. It is noteworthy that the Roman provincial policy in Thrace favored mainly not the Romanization but the Hellenization of the country, which had started as early as the Archaic period through the Greek colonisation and was completed by the end of Roman Antiquity.
As regards the competition between the Greek and Latin language, the very high rate of Greek inscriptions in Thrace extending south of Haemus mountains proves the complete language Hellenization of this region. The boundaries between the Greek and Latin speaking Thrace are placed just above the northern foothills of Haemus mountains. During the imperial period many Thracians – particularly members of the local aristocracy of the cities – had been granted the right of the Roman citizenship (civitas Romana) with all his privileges. Epigraphic evidence show a large increase in such naturalizations in the times of Trajan and Hadrian, while in 212 A.D. the emperor Caracalla granted, with his well-known decree (constitutio Antoniniana), the Roman citizenship to all the free habitants of the Roman Empire.
During the same period (in the 1st-2nd century A.D.), a remarkable presence of Thracians is testified by the inscriptions outside the borders (extra fines) both in the Greek territory and in all the Roman provinces, especially in the provinces of Eastern Roman Empire. By the mid 5th century, as the Western Roman Empire began to crumble, Thracia fell from the authority of Rome and into the hands of Germanic tribal rulers. With the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Thracia turned into a battleground territory for the better part of the next 1,000 years. The surviving eastern portion of the Roman Empire in the Balkans, later known as the Byzantine Empire, retained control over Thrace until the 8th century when the northern half of the entire region was incorporated into the First Bulgarian Empire and the remainder was reorganized in the Thracian theme.
The Empire regained the lost regions in the late 10th century until the Bulgarians regained control of the northern half at the end of the 12th century. Throughout the 13th century and the first half of the 14th century, the region was changing in the hands of the Bulgarian and the Byzantine Empire (excluding Constantinople). In 1265 the area suffered a Mongol raid from the Golden Horde, led by Nogai Khan, and between 1305 and 1307 was raided by the Catalan company. In 1352, the Ottoman Turks conducted their first incursion into the region subduing it completely within a matter of two decades and occupying it for five centuries. In 1821, several parts of Thrace, such as Lavara, Maroneia, Sozopolis, Aenos, Callipolis and Samothraki rebelled during the Greek War of Independence.
With the Congress of Berlin in 1878, Northern Thrace was incorporated into the semi-autonomous Ottoman province of Eastern Rumelia, which united with Bulgaria in 1885. The rest of Thrace was divided among Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey at the beginning of the 20th century, following the Balkan Wars, World War I and the Greco-Turkish War. In Summer 1934, up to 10.000 Jews were maltreated, bereaved and then forced to quit the region). Today, Thracian is a geographical term used in Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria. The largest cities of Thrace are: Plovdiv, Burgas, Stara Zagora, Haskovo, Yambol, Komotini, Alexandroupoli, Xanthi, Edirne, Çorlu and Tekirdağ. Most of the Bulgarian and Greek population are Christians, while most of the Turkish inhabitants of Thrace are Muslims.
Notable Thracians include Orpheus, who was in Ancient Greek mythology, the chief representative of the art of song and playing the lyre. Protagoras was a Greek philosopher from Abdera, Thrace (circa 490–420 B.C.). An expert in rhetorics and subjects connected to virtue and political life, often regarded as the first sophist. He is known primarily for three claims: (1) that man is the measure of all things, often interpreted as a sort of moral relativism, (2) that he could make the "worse (or weaker) argument appear the better (or stronger)" (see Sophism), and (3) that one could not tell if the gods existed or not (see Agnosticism). Herodicus was a Greek physician of the fifth century B.C. who is considered the founder of sports medicine. He is believed to have been one of Hippocrates' tutors.
Democritus was a Greek philosopher and mathematician from Abdera, Thrace (circa 460–370 B.C.) His main contribution is the atomic theory, the belief that all matter is made up of various imperishable indivisible elements which he called atoms. Spartacus was a Thracian who led a large slave uprising in what is now Italy in 73–71 B.C. His army of escaped gladiators and slaves defeated several Roman legions in what is known as the Third Servile War. A number of Roman emperors of the 3rd–5th century were of Thraco-Roman backgrounds (Maximinus Thrax, Licinius, Galerius, Aureolus, Leo the Thracian, etc.). These emperors were elevated via a military career, from the condition of common soldiers in one of the Roman legions to the foremost positions of political power.
Two main gods of the Bessi Thracians were Dionysus (worshiped as Zagreus) and Bendis. Zagreus was worshipped by followers of Orphism (the name given to a set of religious beliefs and practices associated with literature ascribed to the mythical poet Orpheus), whose late Orphic hymns invoke his name. Actually Zagreus was a Thracian god prototype later known as Dionysus – the god of joy, wine and ecstasy in the Greek and Bacchus in the Roman mythology.
Holidays (mysteries) dedicated to Dionysus in Greece were called Dionysii; in Rome they were known as Bacchanalia and in Thrace as Rozalii. Orphic mysteries held in honor of Dionysus-Zagreus were performed only by devoted unmarried men. They were called a-bii, which means "not alive" because they did not lead an ordinary life. The mysteries were held in secret places far from the eyes of the ordinary people and were accompanied by choral songs and mimic games. The culmination of the mysteries was the symbolic death of the king-priest, identified with Zagreus who according to myth was torn apart by the Titans. Following the "death", the mother goddess was also symbolically born.
The first part was carried out through a sacrifice of a bull, horse, goat or even people and the latter through a sexual orgy. Later on, Orphic mysteries became a part of the Bacchanalia. Wine and fire were essential to the cult of Dionysus. The act of wine producing itself was recognized as a tale of the life and sorrow of the god. Picking and smashing the vines represent the way that the Titans tore Dionysus apart. That is why vinification was a mystery that was accompanied by sad songs.
Bendis was a goddess worshiped in Southwestern Thrace. She was typically presented as a hunter, wrapped with leather with boots and a fox fur hat. She holds a spear, a bow or a net and she is often accompanied by a hunting dog. In Greek mythology boots are a symbol of speed. Bendis is different from her Greek analogies in that she wears a fox hat. Vine and Haberlea rhodopensis (Orpheus' flower) were objects of cult for the Bessi. Wine and flame were believed to cause euphoria. Svetonii Tranquil and Herodotus described rituals in which worshippers would divine by pouring wine on the altar and observing the height of the blaze. Other tribes would also burn a sacrificial animal on the altar. They believed that if the flames were vigorous, the year would be fruitful. [Wikipedia].
MORE ANCIENT THRACIANS: The Thracians were a group of Indo-European tribes inhabiting a large area in Eastern and Southeastern Europe. They spoke the Thracian language – a scarcely attested branch of the Indo-European language family. The study of Thracians and Thracian culture is known as Thracology. The first historical record about the Thracians is found in the Iliad, where they are described as allies of the Trojans in the Trojan War against the Greeks. In Greek mythology, Thrax (by his name simply the quintessential Thracian) was regarded as one of the reputed sons of the god Ares. In the Alcestis, Euripides mentions that one of the names of Ares himself was "Thrax" since he was regarded as the patron of Thrace (his golden or gilded shield was kept in his temple at Bistonia in Thrace). The origins of the Thracians remain obscure, in the absence of written historical records. Evidence of proto-Thracians in the prehistoric period depends on artifacts of material culture.
Historian Leo Klejn identifies proto-Thracians with the multi-cordoned ware culture that was pushed away from Ukraine by the advancing timber grave culture or Srubna. It is generally proposed that a proto-Thracian people developed from a mixture of indigenous peoples and Indo-Europeans from the time of Proto-Indo-European expansion in the Early Bronze Age when the latter, around 1500 B.C. mixed with indigenous peoples. During the Iron Age (about 1000 B.C.) Dacians and Thracians began developing from proto-Thracians. Divided into separate tribes, the Thracians did not manage to form a lasting political organization until the Odrysian state was founded in the fifth century B.C. A strong Dacian state appeared in the first century B.C. during the reign of King Burebista. Including the Illyrians, the mountainous regions were home to various peoples regarded as warlike and ferocious Thracian tribes, while the plains peoples were apparently regarded as more peaceable.
Thracians inhabited parts of the ancient provinces of Thrace, Moesia, Macedonia, Dacia, Scythia Minor, Sarmatia, Bithynia, Mysia, Pannonia, and other regions of the Balkans and Anatolia. This area extended over most of the Balkans region, and the Getae north of the Danube as far as beyond the Bug and including Panonia in the west. There were about 200 Thracian tribes. These Indo-European peoples, while considered barbaric and rural by their urbanized Greek neighbors, had developed advanced forms of music, poetry, industry, and artistic crafts. Aligning themselves in kingdoms and tribes, they never displayed any form of national unity beyond short, dynastic rules at the height of the Greek classical period. Similar to the Celtic (e.g., Gauls) and Slavic tribes, most people are thought to have lived simply in small fortified villages, usually on hilltops.
Although the concept of an urban center was not developed until the Roman period, various larger fortifications which also served as regional market centers were numerous. Yet, in general, despite Greek colonization in such areas as Byzantium, Apollonia and other cities, the Thracians avoided urban life. The first Greek colonies in Thrace were founded in the eighth century B.C. Thrace south of the Danube (except for the land of the Bessi) was ruled for nearly half a century by the Persians under Darius the Great, who conducted an expedition into the region from 513 to 512 B.C. The Persians called Thrace "Skudra".
The Odrysian kingdom in its maximum extent under Sitalces (431-424 B.C.). In the first decade of the sixth century B.C. the Persians invaded Thrace and made it part of their satrapy Skudra. Thracians were forced to join the invasions of European Scythia and Greece. According to Herodotus, the Bithynian Thracians also had to contribute a large contingent to Xerxes' invasion of Greece in 480 B.C. Subjugation of Macedonia was part of Persian military operations initiated by Darius the Great (521–486 B.C.) in 513 B.C., after immense preparations, a huge Achaemenid army invaded the Balkans and tried to defeat the European Scythians roaming to the north of the Danube River. Darius' army subjugated several Thracian peoples at the same time, and virtually all other regions that touch the European part of the Black Sea, including parts of present-day Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, and Russia, before it returned to Asia Minor.
Darius left in Europe one of his commanders, named Megabazus, whose task was to accomplish conquests in the Balkans. The Persian troops subjugated gold-rich Thrace, the coastal Greek cities, as well as defeating and conquering the powerful Paeonians. Finally, Megabazus sent envoys to Amyntas, King of Macedon demanding acceptance of Persian domination, which the Macedonian accepted. At this time, many if not most Thracians fell under Persian rule. By the fifth century B.C. the Thracian presence was pervasive enough that Herodotus called them the second-most numerous people in the part of the world known by him (after the Indians), and potentially the most powerful, if not for their lack of unity.
The Thracians in classical times were broken up into a large number of groups and tribes, though a number of powerful Thracian states were organized, such as the Odrysian kingdom of Thrace and the Dacian kingdom of Burebista. The peltast, a type of soldier of this period, probably originated in Thrace. During this period, a subculture of celibate ascetics called the "ctistae" lived in Thrace, where they served as philosophers, priests and prophets. In that period, contacts between the Thracians and Classical Greece intensified. Before the expansion of the Kingdom of Macedon, Thrace was divided into three camps (east, central, and west) after the withdrawal of the Persians from Europe. A notable ruler of the East Thracians was Cersobleptes, who attempted to expand his authority over many of the Thracian tribes. He was eventually defeated by the Macedonians.
Thracian civilization was not urban, and the largest Thracian cities might have been in fact large villages. The Thracians were typically not city-builders and their only polis was Seuthopolis. The conquest of the southern part of Thrace by Philip II of Macedon in the fourth century B.C. made the Odrysian kingdom extinct for several years. After the kingdom had been reestablished, it was a vassal state of Macedon for several decades under generals such as Lysimachus of the Diadochi. In 279 B.C. Celtic Gauls advanced into Macedonia, southern Greece and Thrace. They were soon forced out of Macedonia and southern Greece, but they remained in Thrace until the end of the third century B.C. From Thrace, three Celtic tribes advanced into Anatolia and formed a the kingdom of Galatia.
In parts of Moesia (northeast Serbia), Celtic Scordisci and Thracians lived beside each other, evident in the archaeological findings of pits and treasures, spanning from the third century BC to the first century B.C. During the Macedonian Wars, conflict between Rome and Thracia was unavoidable. The ruling parties in Macedonia weakened and Thracian tribal authority resurged. But after the Battle of Pydna in 168 B.C. Roman authority over Macedonia seemed inevitable, and the governing of Thracia passed to Rome. Initially, Thracians and Macedonians revolted against Roman rule. For example, the revolt of Andriscus, in 149 B.C. drew the bulk of its support from Thracia. Several incursions by local tribes into Macedonia continued for many years, though a few tribes, such as the Deneletae and the Bessi, willingly allied with Rome.
After the Third Macedonian War, Thracia acknowledged Roman authority. The client state of Thracia comprised several tribes. The next century and a half saw the slow development of Thracia into a permanent Roman client state. The Sapaei tribe came to the forefront initially under the rule of Rhascuporis. He was known to have granted assistance to both Pompey and Caesar, and later supported the Republican armies against Antonius and Octavian in the final days of the Republic. The familiar heirs of Rhascuporis were then as deeply tied into political scandal and murder as were their Roman masters. A series of royal assassinations altered the ruling landscape for several years in the early Roman imperial period. Various factions took control, with the support of the Roman Emperor. The turmoil would eventually stop with one final assassination.
After Rhoemetalces III of the Thracian Kingdom of Sapes was murdered in 46 A.D.by his wife, Thracia was incorporated as an official Roman province to be governed by Procurators, and later Praetorian prefects. The central governing authority of Rome was based in Perinthus, but regions within the province were uniquely under the command of military subordinates to the governor. The lack of large urban centers made Thracia a difficult place to manage, but eventually the province flourished under Roman rule. However, Romanization was not attempted in the province of Thracia. The Balkan Sprachbund does not support hellenization.
Roman authority of Thracia rested mainly with the legions stationed in Moesia. The rural nature of Thracia's populations, and distance from Roman authority, certainly inspired the presence of local troops to support Moesia's legions. Over the next few centuries, the province was periodically and increasingly attacked by migrating Germanic tribes. The reign of Justinian saw the construction of over 100 legionary fortresses to supplement the defense. Thracians in Moesia were Romanized while those in Thrace and surrounding areas would come to be known as the Bessi. In the 6th century AD the Bessian (i.e. Thracian) language was reportedly still in use by monks in a Mount Sinai monastery.
Thracians were regarded by other people as warlike, ferocious, and bloodthirsty. They were seen as "barbarians" by ancient Greeks and Romans. Plato in his Republic considers them, along with the Scythians, extravagant and high spirited and his Laws considers them war-like nations grouping them with Celts, Persians, Scythians, Iberians and Carthaginians. Polybius wrote of Cotys's sober and gentle character being unlike that of most Thracians. Tacitus in his Annals writes of them being wild, savage and impatient, disobedient even to their own kings. Polyaenus and Strabo write how the Thracians broke their pacts of truce with trickery. The Thracians struck their weapons against each other before battle, in the Thracian manner, as Polyaneus testifies. Diegylis was considered one of the most bloodthirsty chieftains by Diodorus Siculus. An Athenian club for lawless youths was named after the Triballi.
According to ancient Roman sources, the Diiwere responsible for the worst atrocities of the Peloponnesian War killing every living thing, including children and the dogs in Tanagra and Mycalessos. Thracians would impale Roman heads on their spears and rhomphaias such as in the Kallinikos skirmish at 171 B.C. Herodotus writes that "they sell their children and let their maidens commerce with whatever men they please". The ancient languages of these people and their cultural influence were highly reduced due to the repeated invasions of the Balkans by Celts, Huns, Goths, Scythians, Sarmatians and Slavs, accompanied by, romanization and later slavicisation. However, the Thracians as a group did not entirely disappear, with the Bessi surviving at least until the late 4th century. Towards the end of the 4th century, Nicetas the Bishop of Remesiana brought the gospel to "those mountain wolves", the Bessi.
Reportedly his mission was successful, and the worship of Dionysus and other Thracian gods was eventually replaced by Christianity. In 570, Antoninus Placentius said that in the valleys of Mount Sinai there was a monastery in which the monks spoke Greek, Latin, Syriac, Egyptian and Bessian. The origin of the monasteries is explained in a mediaeval hagiography written by Simeon Metaphrastes, in Vita Sancti Theodosii Coenobiarchae in which he wrote that Theodosius the Cenobiarch founded on the shore of the Dead Sea a monastery with four churches, in each being spoken a different language, among which Bessian was found. The place where the monasteries were founded was called "Cutila", which may be a Thracian name.
The further fate of the Thracians is a matter of dispute. Some authors like Schramm derived the Albanians from the Christian Bessi, or Bessians, an early Thracian people who were pushed westwards into Albania, while more mainstream historians support Illyrian-Albanian continuity or a possible Thraco-Illyrian creole. The rest of the Thracians were assimilated as one of the primary ancestral groups of modern Bulgarians. Withregard to religion, one notable cult that is attested from Thrace to Moesia and Scythia Minor is that of the "Thracian horseman", also known as the "Thracian Heros", at Odessos (Varna) attested by a Thracian name as Heros Karabazmos, a god of the underworld usually depicted on funeral statues as a horseman slaying a beast with a spear. Dacians had a monotheistic religion based on the god Zalmoxis. The supreme Baltic thunder god Perkon was part of the Thracian pantheon, although cults to Orpheus and Zalmoxis likely surpassed him. Some think that the Greek god Dionysus evolved from the Thracian god Sabazios.
The Thracians were a warrior people, known as both horsemen and lightly armed skirmishers with javelins. Thracian peltasts had a notable influence in Ancient Greece. The history of Thracian warfare spans from circa 10th century B.C. up to the 1st century A.D. in the region defined by Ancient Greek and Latin historians as Thrace. It concerns the armed conflicts of the Thracian tribes and their kingdoms in the Balkans and in the Dacian territories. Emperor Traianus conquered Dacia after two wars in the 2nd century A.D. The wars finished with the occupation of the fortress of Sarmisegetusa and the death of the king Decebalus. Apart from conflicts between Thracians and neighboring nations and tribes, numerous wars were recorded among Thracian tribes too.
Several Thracian graves or tombstones have the name Rufus inscribed on them, meaning "redhead" – a common name given to people with red hair. Ancient Greek artwork often depicts Thracians as redheads. Rhesus of Thrace, a mythological Thracian King, derived his name because of his red hair and is depicted on Greek pottery as having red hair and beard. Ancient Greek writers also described the Thracians as red haired. A fragment by the Greek poet Xenophanes describes the Thracians as blue-eyed and red haired: "...Men make gods in their own image; those of the Ethiopians are black and snub-nosed, those of the Thracians have blue eyes and red hair." Bacchylides described Theseus as wearing a hat with red hair, which classicists believe was Thracian in origin. Other ancient writers who described the hair of the Thracians as red include Hecataeus of Miletus, Galen, Clement of Alexandria, and Julius Firmicus Maternus.
Nevertheless, academic studies have concluded that peoples had different physical features than the described by primary sources. Ancient authors described as red-haired varieties of peoples, they claimed that all Slavs had red-hair, likewise described the Scythians, which is diminished as incorrect. According to Dr. Beth Cohen, Thracians had "the same dark hair and the same facial features as the Ancient Greeks." Recent genetic analysis comparing mtDNA samples of ancient Thracian fossil material from southeastern Romania with individuals from modern ethnicities place Italian (7.9%), the Albanian (6.3%) and the Greek (5.8%) have shown a bias of closer genetic kinship with the Thracian individuals than the Romanian and Bulgarian individuals (4.2%), but it was noted that more mtDNA sequences from Thracian individuals are needed in order to perform a complex objective statistical analysis. On the other hand, Dr. Aris N. Poulianos states that Thracians, like modern Bulgarians, belong mainly to the Aegean anthropological type.
A list of historically important personalities being entirely or partly of Thracian ancestry would include: Orpheus, mythological figure considered chief among poets and musicians; king of the Thracian tribe of Cicones. Spartacus, Thracian gladiator who led a large slave uprising in Southern Italy in 73–71 B.C. and defeated several Roman legions in what is known as the Third Servile War. Amadocus, Thracian King, the Amadok Point was named after him. Teres I, Thracian King who united the many tribes of Thrace under the banner of the Odrysian state. Sitalces, King of the Odrysian state; an ally of the Athenians during the Peloponnesian War. Burebista, King of Dacia. Decebalus, King of Dacia. Maximinus Thrax, Roman Emperor from 235 to 238 A.D. Aureolus, Roman military commander.
Galerius, Roman Emperor from 305 to 311 A.D., born to a Thracian father and Dacian mother. Licinius, Roman Emperor from 308 to 324 A.D. Maximinus Daia or Maximinus Daza, Roman Emperor from 308 to 313 A.D. Justin I, Eastern Roman Emperor and founder of the Justinian dynasty. Justinian the Great, Eastern Roman Emperor; either Illyrian or Thracian, born in Dardania. Belisarius, Eastern Roman general of reputed Illyrian or Thracian origin. Marcian, Eastern Roman Emperor from 450 to 457; either Illyrian or Thracian. Leo I the Thracian, Eastern Roman Emperor from 457 to 474. Bouzes or Buzes, Eastern Roman general active in the reign of Justinian the Great (reigned 527–565 A.D.). Coutzes or Cutzes, general of the Byzantine Empire during the reign of Emperor Justinian I.
The branch of science that studies the ancient Thracians and Thrace is called Thracology. The archaeological research of the Thracian culture started in the 20th century and especially after World War II, mainly on the territory of southern Bulgaria. As a result of intensive excavation works in the 1960s and 1970s a number of Thracian tombs and sanctuaries were discovered. More significant among them are: the Tomb of Sveshtari, the Tomb of Kazanlak, Tatul, Seuthopolis, Perperikon, the Tomb of Aleksandrovo, Sarmizegetusa in Romania and others.
Also a large number of elaborately crafted gold and silver treasure sets from the 5th and 4th century BC were unearthed. In the following decades, those were exposed in museums around the world, thus gaining popularity and becoming an emblem of the ancient Thracian culture. Since the year 2000, Bulgarian archaeologist Georgi Kitov has made discoveries in Central Bulgaria which were summarized as "The Valley of the Thracian Kings". The residence of the Odrysian kings was found in Starosel in the Sredna Gora mountains. A 1922 Bulgarian study claimed that there were at least 6,269 necropolises in Bulgaria. [Wikipedia].
EVEN MORE ANCIENT THRACIANS: Who were the Thracians? Among the peoples of the Mediterranean, they have usually been numbered among fringe cultures, shadowy folk on the periphery of the bright world of Greeks and Romans. Emerging as a distinctive culture during the third millennium B.C., they lived in tribal groups in an area bordered on the south by the Aegean, on the east and west by the Black Sea and the Vardar River, and on the north by the Carpathians. Although loosely linked by culture and, apparently, by language, they never achieved political unity, living in small towns and villages. Cities did not appear until late in their history, and their most monumental buildings were tombs.
The Thracians left no written account of their customs and history, and their language is known only from place names and a small number of inscriptions written in Greek characters. The Greeks, however, were well aware of their northern neighbors, with whom they came into contact, and conflict, in the course of colonizing the northern Aegean shore. To the Greeks, Thrace was a wild and woolly place: the birthplace of the violent war god, Ares, the home of the man-eating mares of Diomedes, and the land where demented women tore the singer Orpheus limb from limb. Homer's Iliad provides a striking portrait of the Thracian hero Rhesos, an ally of the Trojans and a fearsome warrior, remarkable for his large and beautiful horses, his ornate chariot, and his golden armor.
The historian Herodotus describes the Thracians in some detail, commenting on their large numbers, their lack of political unity, and various customs such as polygamy and branding of slaves that, from a Greek perspective, struck him as very odd (Histories, 5.3-8). Greeks settled in Thrace and Thracians lived in Greek cities, and there was significant interaction between the two cultures, but any portrait that emerges from surviving written sources is fundamentally biased--the Greeks regarded the Thracians as barbarians. It is only by turning to archaeology that we can gain a better understanding of these people.
"Ancient Gold: The Wealth of the Thracians, Treasures from the Republic of Bulgaria" now at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, makes a small but spectacular part of that archaeological heritage available to American museumgoers. Thracian lands lie within the borders of many modern nations; some of the most remarkable discoveries have been made in Bulgaria. The show, which presents some 200 gold and silver objects, opened in St. Louis in February, and it has now embarked on an extensive tour of the United States.
The exhibition draws on the riches of the following Bulgarian museums--the Archaeological Institute and Museum, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia; the Archaeological Museum, Varna; the Archaeological Museum, Plovdiv; the History Museum, Burgas; the History Museum, Kazanluk; the History Museum, Kiustendil; the History Museum, Lovech; the History Museum, Montana; the History Museum, Pleven; the History Museum, Razgrad; the History Museum, Russe; the History Museum, Stara Zagora; the History Museum, Targovishte; the History Museum, Pazardjik; the History Museum, Veliko Turnovo; and the National History Museum in Sofia. [Archaeological Institute of America].
THRACIAN ARCHAEOLOGY: On a soft, gray fall afternoon, a crowd of several hundred waited patiently outside the Iskra History Museum in Kazanluk, the unprepossessing main town in central Bulgaria's rose-growing region. The blank concrete facade of the museum, like that of most Communist-era cultural institutions, created a notably joyless impression. But inside, the 15 visitors allowed at a time into the small exhibition hall were awed by fantastic Thracian gold, silver, bronze, and ceramic objects, 28 in all, recently discovered only eight miles away and on public display for the first time. An ancient amphora housed on a wobbly metal stand rocked ominously as a woman brushed by. The excitement of the visitors washed over the tiny provincial museum as they carefully studied the objects that have been heralded across the world.
"We are filled with history from the land to the sky," remarked Albena Mileva, who is 24 and unemployed. She hitchhiked 20 miles from the neighboring city of Stara Zagora with two friends to see the exhibit. "So long ago the Thracians were so developed in so many ways. You can touch their spirit and their way of life." "I have no words," sighed Nadka Nenkova, a 66-year-old retired economist who had just seen the exhibit. "All this time it's been underground, and we didn't even know it was there." The sensational finds from a 2,500-year-old necropolis dubbed the "Valley of the Thracian Kings" have fired the imagination of the Bulgarian public and the world beyond. [Archaeological Institute of America].
THRACIAN ARTIFACTS: "The Thracians are the most powerful people in the world, except, of course, for the Indians,” wrote the fifth-century B.C. Greek historian Herodotus. In citing the Thracians, he was referring to the group of tribes who inhabited a large part of the Balkans and parts of Western Anatolia—from the Aegean to the Carpathian Mountains, and as far as the Caucasus—from approximately the twelfth century B.C. to the sixth century A.D. Despite their fearsome reputation, relatively little is known about them. Few examples of their writing survive, and what other information we have comes from Greek literary sources and Thracian burial mounds. Many of these mounds have been excavated since the end of the Cold War, when their former lands, Bulgaria and Romania in particular, became accessible to well-trained archaeologists and modern methodology.
This past November, archaeologist Diana Gergova of the National Institute of Archaeology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences entered the burial chamber of an almost 60-foot-tall mound in the Sveshtari necropolis, some 250 miles northeast of the Bulgarian capital of Sofia. There she discovered a wooden chest filled with hundreds of gold artifacts. Gergova believes that the burial belonged to a ruler of the Getae, one of the most powerful of the Thracian tribes, who, around 2,400 years ago, were “at their absolute height, politically, culturally, and militarily.”
According to Gergova, the finely crafted gold treasures from Sveshtari help confirm the ancient writers’ accounts of Thracian culture. The craftsmanship also reveals previously unknown stylistic connections to other tribes in the northern and western regions of the Black Sea, providing evidence for a wide cultural ring across Thracian lands. The site could also provide new insight into the Thracian religion, including their belief in the immortal nature of the human soul, which may have influenced early Christianity, says Gergova. “These finds have given us an incredible amount of information about the burial and post-burial practices of the northern Thracians.” [Archaeological Institute of America].
THRACIAN GRAVES: A pair of gold-plated silver cups depicting Eros, the god of love, and a rare snail-shaped glass drinking vessel are among new discoveries made by Veselin Ignatov of the Nova Zagora Museum in a first-century A.D. Thracian burial mound in east-central Bulgaria. The brick tomb from which these artifacts were excavated belongs to the same person whose richly decorated chariot, horses, and favorite dog were found by Ignatov just a few feet away in 2008. It is the earliest intact grave ever found associated with a chariot burial.
"This grave shows the Thracian aristocracy's exceptional wealth when Thrace became a province of the Roman Empire [in A.D. 46]," says Ignatov. He suggests the tomb belonged to a family member or associate of King Rhoemetalces III (A.D. 38-44), the last sovereign of the Odrysian Kingdom, who was murdered in a coup led by his wife. While more than 200 Thracian chariot burial complexes have been found in Bulgaria over the last two decades, most have been uncovered and destroyed by looters. "You can count on your fingers the number discovered and studied by archaeologists," says Ignatov, who estimates the total number of Thracian burial sites in Bulgaria to be about 12,000. [Archaeological Institute of America].
THE MASK OF A THRACIAN KING: The recent find of a magnificent 2,300-year-old solid-gold mask is helping to liberate the Thracians from the "barbarian" reputation given to them by their ancient Greek neighbors, according to archaeologist Georgi Kitov of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Kitov made the discovery during the excavation of a burial mound in a region of central Bulgaria considered the "Valley of the Thracian Kings" because of the number and wealth of royal tombs so far discovered there.
The mask is believed to be a likeness of Seutus III, a Thracian king who ruled in the late fourth century B.C. Weighing about one and a half pounds, it is the first solid-gold mask found in the country. Only partial remains of an adult male were found in the tomb, which contained objects necessary for a kingly afterlife: a sword, a double ax, huge amphorae that were most likely once filled with wine, and bronze and silver vessels.
Along with the mask, which was positioned where the head would have been (the skull is believed to be interred elsewhere), an elegant gold ring depicting an athlete was also found on the body. The mask would have been worn during royal drinking ceremonies that were described by ancient Greek authors, says Kitov. After a Thracian leader consumed wine from a golden vessel emblazoned with his likeness, he would place the mask on his face, impressing his company with his power.
The Thracians were a nonliterate tribe often depicted by their southern neighbors as wild savages. "Archaeology is helping us understand that the Thracians were much more developed culturally and politically than the Greek authors portray them to be," says Kitov. [Archaeological Institute of America].
ROMAN GRAVES IN THRACE: Archaeology in Bulgaria reports that a team has unearthed three Late Roman graves beneath the 20-foot-tall Otrusha burial mound in the Valley of Thracian Kings. Located in central Bulgaria, the mound was built to hold the remains of Thracian aristocrats who had integrated into Roman society. A landslide at the site last fall led to rescue excavations led by Diana Dimitrova of the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology. Her team found two tombs containing skeletal remains, and one containing a cremated individual who had been buried with several artifacts, including a ceramic wine jug and Roman bronze coins minted between A.D. 335 and 378, which were probably buried near the remains in a leather purse. Dimitrova believes there could still be more tombs to be discovered at the Otrusha mound. [Archaeological Institute of America].
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