Archaeological Sites in Bulgaria

Abritus

Abritus was a major Roman fortified city in the province of Moesia Inferior, founded as a military camp near modern Razgrad, Bulgaria. Excavations revealed the largest Late…

Aedava

Aedava was a Dacian settlement located south of the Danube in Moesia. In his 6th-century work De Aedificiis, the historian Procopius placed Aedava on the Danubian road between…

Aquae Calidae, Bulgaria

Aquae Calidae was an ancient Thracian thermal spa near modern Burgas, Bulgaria, with hot springs used since the Neolithic (6th-5th millennium BC). Roman baths were expanded under…

Cabyle

Cabyle (also Kabile) was one of the most important centres of south-eastern Thrace, established around 2000 BC on the Zaychi Vrah Heights near modern Yambol, Bulgaria. It served…

Cape St. Athanasius Ancient Settlement

The Cape St. Athanasius fortress is an archaeological site on a Black Sea promontory near Byala, Varna Province, with occupation spanning from the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age…

Dausdava

Dausdava (also spelled Dausadava) was a Dacian town in the Roman province of Moesia, situated between the Danube and the Balkan Mountains in the region between Nicopolis (modern…

Diocletianopolis, Thrace

Diocletianopolis was a major Roman city in Thrace, now the town of Hisarya in central Bulgaria. The site has been inhabited since around 6000 BC. Under Rome, the settlement was…

Durankulak Archaeological Park

Durankulak is a prehistoric archaeological site on the Golemija (Big) Island in Durankulak lake, northeastern Bulgaria. Settlement began around 5000 BC (7000 BP) and continued…

Giridava

Giridava (also Giridaua or Geridava) was a Dacian town in Lower Moesia, corresponding to modern northern Bulgaria. The name follows the Dacian -dava suffix meaning 'city'.

Heraclea Sintica

Heraclea Sintica, also known as Heraclea Strymonike, was an ancient Greek city located near what is now the village of Rupite in south-western Bulgaria. Heraclea Sintica was…

Hisarya, Bulgaria

Hisarya is a spa town in Plovdiv Province, Bulgaria. By the 5th century BC a Thracian town occupied the site under the Odrysian Kingdom. After Roman annexation, it was renamed…

Marcianopolis

Marcianopolis or Marcianople, also known as Parthenopolis, was an ancient Greek, then Roman capital city and archbishopric in Moesia Inferior. It is located at the site of…

Mesembria

Mesembria, modern Nesebar in Bulgaria, was originally a Thracian settlement called Menebria ("town of Mena") before Greek colonists from Megara established it as a colony in the…

Nesebar

Often referred to as the "Pearl of the Black Sea", Nesebar is a rich city-museum defined by more than three millennia of ever-changing history. The small city exists in two parts…

Nicopolis ad Istrum

Nicopolis ad Istrum or Nicopolis ad Iatrum was a Roman and Early Byzantine town. Its ruins are located at the village of Nikyup, 20 km north of Veliko Tarnovo in northern…

Nicopolis ad Nestum

Nicopolis ad Nestum or Nicopolis ad Mestum, is a ruined Roman town in the province of Thracia (Thrace) near to the modern village of Garmen on the left bank of the Mesta river, in…

Obzor

Dating back to ancient times, Obzor has been known by several different names: Naulochos under the Thracians and Greeks, Templum Iovis under the Romans. The Thracian and ancient…

Odessus

Odessus (modern Varna) was founded as a Greek apoikia (colonial trading post) by Miletian settlers in the second quarter of the 6th century BC, superimposed on an earlier Thracian…

Oescus

Oescus, Palatiolon or Palatiolum was an important ancient city on the Danube river in Roman Moesia. It later became known as Ulpia Oescus. It lay northwest of the modern Bulgarian…

Pautalia

Pautalia is one of the great ancient cities of Thrace, now located in Kyustendil. It was a settlement of the Dentheletae, a Thracian tribe, and had been occupied since at least…

Perperikon

Perperikon is the largest megalithic ensemble in the Balkans, situated on a 470m rocky hill in the Eastern Rhodope Mountains near Kardzhali, Bulgaria. Occupation traces date to…

Philippopolis, Thrace

Philippopolis was an ancient city located where modern Plovdiv, Bulgaria stands. Founded as a Thracian settlement, it became a major Roman urban center and capital of the province…

Pistiros

Pistiros was an inland Ancient Greek emporion (trade centre) in Ancient Thrace, situated near modern Vetren in Bulgaria's western Maritsa River valley. The site flourished during…

Ratiaria

Ratiaria was an ancient Roman city along the river Danube. A Roman colony was established there, called Colonia Ulpia Traiana Ratiaria. It is located 2 km west of the present…

Roman City of Deultum - Develtos

Develtos (also Deultum) was a Thracian settlement founded as a Greek emporium in the 7th century BC near modern Debelt, Bulgaria. Located at the mouth of the Sredetska River on…

Seuthopolis

Seuthopolis was an ancient Hellenistic city founded by the Thracian king Seuthes III between 325–315 BC which was the capital of the Odrysian kingdom. Seuthopolis was not a true…

Sofia

Unlike most European capitals, Sofia does not straddle any large river, but is surrounded by comparatively high mountains on all sides. The Neolithic village in Slatina dating to…

Solnitsata

Solnitsata was a prehistoric town located in present-day Bulgaria, near the modern city of Provadia. It is the oldest salt production center in continental Europe (5500‑4200 BC).…

Sozopol

Sozopol is one of the oldest towns on Bulgarian Thrace's Black Sea coast. The first settlement on the site dates back to the Bronze Age. Undersea explorations in the region of the…

Stara Zagora

The earliest traces of civilisation in the region of Stara Zagora date back to the end of the 7th millennium B.C. Then, almost simultaneously, four prehistoric settlements emerged…

Tell Yunatsite

Tell Yunatsite, also known as Ploskata mogila, is situated in the Pazardzhik Province of southern Bulgaria, some 8 kilometres to the west of the district capital Pazardzhik. The…

Varna, Bulgaria

Varna, historically known as Odessos, was founded by Milesian Greek colonists at the end of the 7th century BC on the site of an earlier Thracian settlement along the Black Sea…

Zaldapa

Zaldapa was a large Late Roman fortified city in Scythia Minor/Moesia, located near today's Abrit. Zaldapa is included in the list of fortifications renovated during the reign of…

Getic Burial Complex

The Getic burial complex is an archaeological site near Sveshtari in Razgrad Province in Bulgaria. Various artifacts have been recovered from a Thracian tomb which dates from the…

Roman Tomb of Silistra

The Roman Tomb of Silistra is an Ancient Roman burial tomb in the town of Silistra in northeastern Bulgaria. The Roman Tomb is the best-preserved architectural monument of the…

Thracian Tomb Griffins

The Thracian tomb Griffins, found in Bulgaria, has a façade decorated with plastic columns and with a pediment above them. The pediment`s ends are semi-palmettes, the lower leaves…

Thracian Tomb Helvetia

The Thracian tomb "Helvetia" mound near Shipka was built in the middle of the 4th century BC. The walls of the tomb's entrance corridor are made of stone. After this corridor an…

Thracian Tomb of Aleksandrovo

The Aleksandrovo Tomb is a Thracian burial mound near Aleksandrovo, Haskovo Province, Bulgaria, dating to the late 4th or early 3rd century BC. Accidentally uncovered by an…

Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak

The Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak is a vaulted-brickwork "beehive" tomb that is located near the town of Kazanlak in central Bulgaria. The tomb is part of a large royal Thracian…

Thracian Tomb of Sveshtari

Built c. 300 BC, this Thracian tomb lies 2.5 km southwest of Sveshtari village in Razgrad Province, northeast Bulgaria. It is likely the burial place of Dromichaetes, a Getae king…

Thracian Tomb, Shushmanets

The Thracian tomb at Shushmanets is a mound located in the Valley of the Thracian Rulers. It was built as a temple in the 4th century BC and later used as a tomb. The temple has a…

Tomb of Seuthes III

The Tomb of Seuthes III is located near Kazanlak, Bulgaria. Seuthes III was the King of the Odrysian Kingdom of Thrace from c. 331 to c. 300 BC and founder of the nearby Thracian…

Varna Necropolis

The Varna Necropolis is a Chalcolithic burial site accidentally discovered in 1972 by excavator operator Raycho Marinov during construction work. Radiocarbon dating places the…

Castra ad Montanesium

Castra ad Montanesium is a ruined Roman fortress in the town of Montana, Bulgaria. It was built as the town grew to greater importance as a Roman settlement. The site is located…

Castra Martis

Castra Martis was a Roman fortified garrison in Dacia which became a town and bishopric and remains a Latin Catholic titular see. Castra Martis, named after the Roman god of war…

Kovachevsko kale

Kovachevsko kale was a Roman city in present-day Bulgaria, located 6 km (4 mi) west of the modern town of Popovo. The Czech archaeologist Karel Škorpil documented and named the…

Novae Fortress

(1st–5th c. AD) Novae was a major Roman legionary fortress guarding the Danube frontier in what is now northern Bulgaria. The settlement grew into an important town within the…

Sostra

Sostra is an ancient Roman fort and settlement near the village of Lomets. Sostra was strategically situated along the major Roman road (the Via Traiana) linking ancient…

Storgosia

Storgosia was a Roman road station on the route connecting Ulpia Oescus on the Danube to Philippopolis (Plovdiv), located in modern Kaylaka Park in Pleven, Bulgaria. Garrisoned by…

Bacho Kiro Cave

The Bacho Kiro Cave is situated 5 km west of the town Dryanovo, Bulgaria, only 300 m away from the Dryanovo Monastery. It is embedded in the canyons of the Andaka and Dryanovo…

Devetashka Cave

Devetàshka Cave is a large karst cave around 15 km southwest of Letnitsa and 15 km northeast of Lovech, near the village of Devetaki on the east bank of the river Osam, in…

Kozarnika, Dimovo Municipality

Kozarnika cave in northwestern Bulgaria contains evidence of human occupation dating back to the Lower Paleolithic, making it one of Europe's oldest known hunter-gatherer sites.…

Magura Cave

The Magura Cave is located in north-western Bulgaria close to the village of Rabisha. The prehistoric wall paintings of Magura have great resemblance with those of the Grotta dei…

Utroba Cave

The Utroba Cave, also known as Womb Cave, is an ancient cave sanctuary in Kardzhali Province. Located in the Eastern Rhodope Mountains near the Ilinitsa village, the cave…

Mogilan Mound

The Mogilan mound or Mogilanska mound is a burial mound in the center of Vratsa, Bulgaria. During excavations in 1965–66, 3 tombs were found in it, built of stone. One of them -…

Ostrusha Mound

The Ostrusha mound is a Thracian burial tumulus near the Bulgarian town of Shipka. It was constructed in the middle of the 4th century BCE. The stone structures under the more…

Valley of the Thracian Rulers

Beglik Tash

Beglik Tash is a prehistoric rock sanctuary on Bulgaria's southern Black Sea coast near Primorsko, re-discovered in 2003 and used from the Late Bronze Age (mid-2nd millennium BC)…

Belintash

Belintash (Bulgarian: Белинташ, pronounced as Belantash and Belǎntash in some local Bulgarian dialects) is a small plateau in the Rhodope Mountains in Bulgaria bearing traces of…

Tatul

Tatul is an ancient Thracian megalithic sanctuary in the Eastern Rhodopes of southern Bulgaria, centered on a massive monolithic rock shaped as a truncated pyramid with two…

Chevdar

Chevdar is a Neolithic archeological site near Kazanluk in Bulgaria. An early Neolithic house was found that would have had wooden walls, marked by post holes. It was plastered…

Hadzhidimitrovo

Late Neolithic pit site located 13 km northwest of Yambol in southeastern Bulgaria, dating to the 6th and early 5th millennia BC.

Church of Saint George, Sofia

The Church of Saint George is a late antique red brick rotunda in Sofia, Bulgaria. Built in the early 4th century CE as Roman baths, it became a church inside the walls of…

Great Basilica, Plovdiv

The Great Basilica (Bishop's Basilica of Philippopolis) in Plovdiv was constructed in the mid-4th century AD and represents the largest late antique early-Christian church…

Museum of Mosaics, Devnya

The Museum of Mosaics is a museum in the town of Devnya in Varna Province, northeastern Bulgaria. The museum, built on top of a large ruined Roman villa from Late Antiquity,…

Neolithic Dwellings Museum

Neolithic Dwellings Museum in Stara Zagora, Bulgaria is a museum in Stara Zagora, Bulgaria, which contains ruins of two of the oldest surviving buildings in the world. The…

Domus Eirene

The House of Eirene (Latin: Domus Eirene; Bulgarian: Резиденция Ейрене) is an ancient Roman peristyle house with lavish mosaic floors in Philippopolis. The excavated area of the…

Villa Armira

Villa Armira, is a 1st-century suburban Roman villa in southeastern Bulgaria, located in the proximity of Ivaylovgrad, Haskovo Province. Villa Armira lies some 4 kilometres…

Odeon of Philippopolis

The Odeon of Philippopolis was the house of the city council of citizens of ancient Plovdiv. It was also used as a theatre due to its appropriate structure. The Odeon buildings…

Roman Theatre of Philippopolis

The Roman theatre of Philippopolis is one of the world's best-preserved ancient Roman theatres, located in the city center of modern Plovdiv, Bulgaria, once the ancient city of…

Amphitheatre of Serdica

The Amphitheatre of Serdica was an amphitheatre in the Ancient Roman city of Ulpia Serdica, now Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. Discovered in 2004 and the subject of excavations…

Dolni Glavanak Cromlech

The Dolni Glavanak Cromlech is an oval stone circle located 2 kilometres west of village of Dolni Glavanak, some 12 kilometres from town of Madzharovo, in Bulgaria. The site is…

Eastern Gate of Philippopolis

The Eastern gate of Philippopolis is one of the three known entrances to the ancient Thracian city of Philippopolis. The gate was built on the main road to Byzantium and the…

Roman Thermae, Varna

The Roman Thermae are a complex of Ancient Roman baths (thermae) in the Black Sea port city of Varna in northeastern Bulgaria. The Roman Thermae are situated in the southeastern…

Sacred Pit of Garlo

A prehistoric underground sanctuary near the village of Garlo in Pernik District, Bulgaria, dating to approximately the 11th century BC. A 7-metre corridor with thirteen stone…

Thracian Tomb Golyama Arsenalka

Golyama Arsenalka is a Thracian burial tumulus near Shipka, Bulgaria, dating to the end of the 5th century BC. The tomb features a representative facade, a small antechamber, and…