Bulgarian e-Journal of Archaeology | Българско е-Списание за Археология
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International conference “The Alexandrovo Tomb: 20 Years Later”, Sofia, 11–12 May 2021
Full text linkEvidence of daily life inside the EBA I defence system at Hacılar Büyük Höyük (Burdur–Turkey)
Full text linkExcavations at Hacılar Büyük Höyük, which is located 27 km to the southwest of Burdur, began in 2011 under my direction and are still in progress. The pre-planned, “sawtooth”-shaped defence system surrounds the settlement along the western slope like a necklace. The first of the two city gates designed to conform to the defence system is the Western Gate, and the other is the Southern Gate. Items found on the floors and in the courtyards of most of the 49 casemates uncovered so far include various kinds of pottery, baked clay, stone seals; idols made of baked clay, marble and other stone types; ‘pubis’ models (?) formed from pebbles; metal finds such as needles, bracelets, spatulas and daggers; bone pins and awls, handles shaped from deer antlers; chipped stone artefacts, grinding stones and tools. This indicates that the buildings that make up the defence system were also used as residences
Култът към Юпитер в долнодунавските провинции по времето на Тетрархията: The cult of Jupiter in the Lower Danube Provinces during the Tetrarchy
No full textThe paper aims to trace the history of the cult of the supreme Roman deity Jupiter in the Lower Danube territories during the period of the Tetrarchy. The topic, within these chronological frames, had not been tackled thus far. The conspicuous positioning of Jupiter on top of the religious propaganda of Diocletian and his heirs, was a result chiefly of the desire to seek legitimacy for their power outside the army. This religious policy was also reflected in the provinces. The paper explores the known archaeological and epigraphic monuments from the Dacia Ripensis, Moesia Inferior (Secunda), and Scythia Minor provinces. The large temple of Jupiter at the residence of Galerius at Felix Romuliana, is the most obvious manifestation of the religious policy at the highest government level. More informative for the nature of the cult are the six epigraphic monuments preserved to this day. These demonstrate that the observation and propaganda of the cult of the supreme Roman deity engaged primarily officers of the provincial civil or military administration. In contrast to the age of the Principate, dedications by common soldiers and veterans, as well as by local civilian communities – colonies, municipia, vici, are entirely missing. The observed changes were not exclusive to the cult of Jupiter but reflected the new political, economic and religious environment in the Roman provinces as a whole
Амфоры VI–I вв. до н.э. из собрания Государственного музея изобразительных искусств им. А.С. Пушкина Рeцензия на книга: Сергей Ю. Монахов, Eлена В. Кузнецова, Владимир П. Толстиков, Наталья Б. Чурекова. Амфоры VI–I вв. до н.э. из собрания Государственного музея изобразительных искусств им. А.С. Пушкина. Саратов: Амирит, 2020, ISBN 978-5-00140-616-7: The Amphorae of the 6th–1st century BC of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts Book review: Sеrgej J. Monakhov, Elena V. Kuznetsova, Vladimir P. Tolstikov, Natalia B. Churekova. The Amphorae of the 6th–1st century BC of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts. Saratov: Аmirit, 2020, ISBN 978-5-00140-616-7
No full textОбекти на езическа култова обредност от римската епоха в Поломието. Част 1: Sites with pagan cult activity during the Roman period in the Polomie region. Part 1
No full textBased on the current state of research, this work aims to present, as complete as possible, picture of the pagan cult infrastructure during the Roman period in the Polomie region. The region covers the catchment area of the Rusenski Lom River (2946.9 square kilometers). The first part presents the theoretical and methodological groundwork of the study, after which a comprehensive analysis, systematization and reinterpretation is offered of the available information about the sites in the river valleys of the Cherni and Malki Lom
Multidisciplinary research on flint raw materials and artefacts from northwestern Bulgaria
Full text linkThe paper presents newly obtained field and laboratory data for flint raw materials and artefacts from northwestern Bulgaria. The field survey and associated analytical work were carried out in 2020 with the following purposes: i) identifying flint raw material outcrops in the region; ii) collecting suitable raw material samples from discovered outcrops and flint artefacts from newly excavated archaeological sites; iii) integrated laboratory analyses of the samples (micropetrography and geochemistry); iv) recording and updating information about archaeological sites in the “Archaeological Map of Bulgaria” information system in the Montana and Vidin regions; and v) GIS-based reconstruction (least-cost path models) of possible raw material procurement systems, based on similarities between samples from different archaeological sites and flint outcrops. The micro-petrography and trace elements, determined by LA–ICP–MS suggest that only a few specimens among the analysed artefacts from NW Bulgaria show similarities to the local raw materials. The artefacts sampled as macroscopically similar to the Balkan flint (BF) from the recently discovered Neolithic sites in NW Bulgaria show affinity with previously studied samples of BF from the Pleven–Nikopol region, where two main clusters of BF sources were identified and recorded in 2011. Additionally, GIS-determined pathways of flint distribution are suggested in the context of raw material procurement strategy and acquisition
Heat alterations of flint artefacts: archaeological evidence, experiments and analyses
Full text linkHeat treatment of flint and other knappable materials has been recognized among prehistoric archaeological lithics, leading to a wide range of experiments and archaeometric analyses. The aim of these analyses was to shed light on the mechanical and chemical changes that occur in lithics (flints) subjected to heat treatment, some of which remain poorly understood. This paper does not focus on intentional heat treatment of lithics in its technological aspect – for enhancing the debitage/flaking properties of the raw material. Our scientific goal was to record and document the various changes that occurred in different flint artefacts subjected to heat and to apply the observations to several well-illustrated case-studies of artefacts from archaeological contexts with recognizable stigmata of heat treatment. To achieve a better understanding of the factors and processes that produce alterations we used a range of analytical techniques: micropetrography, microstructural analysis [(powder X-Ray diffraction (XRD)] and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) with interesting results
Online forum: Archaeological Approaches to the Study of the Potter Wheel, 24th–27th November 2020, EXARC.net
Full text linkSome remarks on the Early Bronze Age I defence system at Hacılar Büyük Höyük (Burdur, Turkey)
Full text linkHacılar Büyük Höyük is located 27 km southwest of Burdur near the eponymous village of Hacılar. Forty of the building units (casemates) that form a carefully pre-planned multi- defence system with “saw-tooth” protrusions and two city gates have been uncovered in the western half of the city. Hacılar Büyük Höyük must have been the centre of a strong local kingdom at the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC, and would have controlled the village settlements in the surrounding region that made a living through agriculture, animal husbandry and trade on a small scale. The urban layout uncovered in the past nine years of excavations and the dimensions and ostentatious appearance of the defence system display qualities that have so far not been seen at any other centre
A Lurking City: Nicopolis ad Nestum between Mark Antony and Trajan
Full text linkDespite longstanding archaeological research in Nicopolis ad Nestum in Roman Thracia, the site still has not yielded any conclusive evidence on its foundation date. Instead, the debate has long been focused on scanty numismatic and ancient literary sources, pointing largely to city’s Trajanic origins. Latest attempts to re-evaluate the situation in favour of an earlier enterprise taken by the triumvir Mark Antony in the last years of the Roman Republic are much disputable. Along with many arguments denying Nicopolis’s Antonian foundation, the present paper discusses several neglected documents – military diplomas, issued to veteran-sailors from the Ravenna fleet in the summer of AD 142 after 26 years of service. Three copies speak of “Nicopolis ex Bessia” as sailors’ home, which is to be identified with Nicopolis ad Nestum. Peculiar expression “ex Bessia” is not to be understood strictly formulaic as “city ex province” (i.e. “ex Thracia”), as is the case with the majority of later documents, but rather as a residual practice from the 1st century in designating the tribal home of the veterans. In a larger sense it is the territory (or at least part of it) of the Thracian Bessi. The evidence is met by Pliny (NH 4.11.40), and his “Bessorumque multa nomina” inhabiting the Middle Mesta (Nestus) region. Thus “Nicopolis ex Bessia” has entered military records upon soldiers’ recruitment in AD 116, marking a new-born civic foundation and the still incipient phase of organizing the urban territory within the larger tribal area of the Bessi. Therefore, the discharge documents in question can only confirm the information from other sources and in the same time to narrow the foundation date of Nicopolis ad Nestum under Trajan somewhere between AD 107, after the Dacian wars, and the emperor’s Parthian campaign of AD 116