Site of major archaeological finds in Plovdiv faces being concreted over – report
A site of some of the most exciting archaeological discoveries in Bulgaria’s second city Plovdiv faces being obscured by concrete, local media said on August 24.
The site is on private land, where part of a giant ancient triumphal arch together with the part of the central street of Philippopolis and the walls of buildings dating from antiquity were found, Plovdiv news website podtepeto.com said.
A commission of experts from Bulgaria’s Ministry of Culture has been on the spot to establish the importance of archaeological discoveries, but ultimately the decision about what will happen to the site is the owner’s.
According to the report, the owner, unnamed, intended that the finds would remain under the foundations of the future building.
Dismantling the part of the arch on the site is not an option because it continues underneath the route of a nearby boulevard and cannot be revealed in its entirety.
A team of archaeologists, led by Elena Bozhinova, worked on the site for more than a month, and described it as unique.
The report noted that in 2018, the discoveries near the road tunnel in Plovdiv had been the subject of a special report by the Italian edition of National Geographic, which focused especially on the findings dating from the Gothic invasion in the year 251, when Philippopolis – as Plovdiv then was known – was almost completely burnt down.
The archaeologists uncovered a scene of brutal murder from antiquity while working on the earliest layers of terrain. In the remnants of one of the buildings from the second to the third century, the remains of a very small child, with an iron tip of a dart in the chest, were found on the floor.
Next to the remains were those of two older individuals, probably the parents of the child, who tried to escape the attackers with their home treasures. But they did not succeed. After they were killed, their home was completely burnt down.
