A recently reconstructed golden breastplate along with five hundred other artifacts have been displayed at Pernik Regional Museum of History in Bulgaria. All these items, mostly jewels and adornments, were found during archaeological excavations near Dren and Delyan, towns in Radomir Municipality in Pernik District.
The huge stone necropolis discovered during the construction of the Struma Highway across Southwest Bulgaria is known as Ancient Thracian necropolis. It dates back to the 1st millennium BC. This necropolis was in use for six hundred years, scholars say, namely from the eleventh century BC to the fourth century BC. Its area is as large as a hundred decares or around twenty-five acres. Due to its size, the Thracian necropolis is believed to be the biggest one in the Central Balkans. To date, the archaeologists have unearthed three complexes of stone graves constructed in a chain-like manner. The overall length of these complexes is 400 meters. In sum, 55 Thracian graves, which date back to the eleventh, tenth, and ninth centuries BC were excavated. Another 50 graves date back to the sixth-fourth centuries BC. The archaeologists have found that ancient corpses were buried prior to being buried.
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Among the discovered artifacts, there were silver, gold, bronze, amber, as well as glass decorations and adornments. Some prominent ones were golden rhomboid breastplate, pieces of a few other breastplates, golden hairpins, sets of earrings made of gold, blue and green glass jewels, silver medallions, and gold-plates tweezers. Among the rest of the finds there were ammunition and horse reins, urns, weapons, and pottery vessels that are thought to refer to a previously unknown culture in archaeology.
Structure is another remarkable feature of the necropolis apart from its size and grave inventories. In particular, its graves are all covered with large stones even though no stone deposits are known in the vicinity. The archaeologists also discovered that Thracian necropolis was constructed in accordance to some preliminary plan and designed for lengthy use. This could be established based on dating of funerals and inventories. In Pernik Museum’s release, it is said that one and the same population buried their relatives in the necropolis for six hundred years. The showcase is possible due to restoration help provided by American Research Center in Sofia and America for Bulgaria Foundation.
