Villa Armira

Villa Armira is a luxurious 1st-century Roman villa near Ivaylovgrad in southeastern Bulgaria, discovered in 1964 during reservoir construction. Spanning 3,600 sq m across two stories, it contained 22 mosaic-decorated rooms, a sauna bathhouse, and a fresco-decorated pool with marble dolphin reliefs. Its finest decorations were crafted by masters from Aphrodisias in Asia Minor, and its mosaic portraits of the owner and his children are the only Roman-era mosaic portraits found in Bulgaria. The villa was destroyed during the Gothic wars around 378 AD near the Battle of Adrianople.