04 novembre 2007
Archaeologists Unearth Rare State Seals from 1st Bulgarian Empire
Archaeologists have made a sensational finding on Saturday, dated back to the first Bulgarian Empire (years 681-1018) in the ancient Bulgarian capital of Pliska.
The team of archaeologists found state seals, which belonged to the rulers Simeon and Petar.
The interesting thing is that the seals were found in the base of one of the wooden fortified walls, quite far from the Tzar palace.
The archaeologists unearthed the findings, while they were having excavations at a chain of living and public buildings. The scientists were very surprised when, among the tools, the bone and medal jewelry and pots they found also archbishop and ruler's insignia.
"Our most precious findings are the two lead seals of the two Bulgarian Rulers. One of them has no inscription on it, which by that time was identified with Tzar Simeon at the time when he was not officially proclaimed a tzar. The other seal belonged to his son Petar I and his wife Maria-Irina," archaeologist Pavel Georgiev said.
Archaeologists also unearthed a trench behind the wooden fortified walls, which shows that the Bulgarian military strategists were very well acquainted with the fortification techniques used by the emperors of the Roman Empire.
Simeon I the Great ruled over Bulgaria from 893 to 927, during the First Bulgarian Empire. Simeon's successful campaigns against the Byzantines, Magyars and Serbs led Bulgaria to its greatest territorial expansion ever, making it the most powerful state in contemporary Eastern Europe. His reign was also a period of unmatched cultural prosperity and enlightenment later deemed the Golden Age of Bulgarian culture.
During Simeon's rule, Bulgaria spread over a territory between the Aegean, the Adriatic and the Black Sea, and the new Bulgarian capital Preslav was said to rival Constantinople.The newly-independent Bulgarian Orthodox Church became the first new patriarchate besides the Pentarchy and Bulgarian Glagolitic translations of Christian texts spread all over the Slavic world of the time.Halfway through his reign, Simeon assumed the title of Emperor (Tzar), having prior to that been styled Prince (Knyaz).
http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=87125
03 novembre 2007
GRAND HOTEL BULGARIA REVAMP PROJECT IN VIOLATION OF CULTURAL MONUMENT PRESERVATION REGULATIONS - UAB
13:43 Fri 02 Nov 2007 - Elena Koinova
Grand Hotel Bulgaria is a cultural monument, and as such it is subject to special regulations and, therefore, all reconstruction projects are subject to the nods of the Ministry of Culture, the National Institute for Cultural Monuments and all authorities executive for the preservation of the cultural heritage of the Bulgarian capital.
This was the main message circulated by the Union of Architects in Bulgaria (UAB) at a BTA-hosted news conference on November 2.
The alarm bell, in the form of a declaration, has been dispatched to the president of the republic, prime minister, the ministries of regional development and culture, the Sofia municipality, as well as the investor of the project to revamp and expand Grand Hotel Bulgaria into a mixed-purpose complex, BT Development Services.
Several days ago, InvestBulgaria Agency, the local investment promotion authority, granted BT Development Services' subsidiary, Grand Hotel Bulgaria AD a Class A Investor Certificate for the 82 million leva project, to be implemented in three years' time.
The UAB chairperson Spiridon Ganev insisted that the developer circulated misleading information to the public by saying the project would restore the building's silhouette from the 1930s. “Rather, the conceptual design, as drafted by architect Pavel Ivanov seeks to rejig the style of a US building from the 1930s, which dooms an architectural monument to death,” Ganev said.
Konstantin Boyadjiev, head of Docomomo, an association which compiles and consolidates data on monuments from modernist times and “stamping the death certificates of 'late' buildings of historical significance”, said that should the project go forward, his association would be issuing yet another “death certificate” as the building would no longer serve as a cultural monument.
The UAB underscored that apart from lack of co-ordination with the relevant authorities dealing with cultural monuments' preservation, the investor is in transgression of Sofia's city masterplan and of the Copyright Act. While the first does not allow for the building's height to be increased to 10 or 11 floors as InvestBulgaria plans, the latter refers to the neglect of architectural design rights to the building, which at present belong to the daughter of architect of the structuralist line, Stancho Belkovski.
http://www.sofiaecho.com/article/grand-hotel-bulgaria-revamp-project-in-violation-of-cultural-monument-preservation-regulations---uab/id_25935/catid_66
02 novembre 2007
BULGARIA'S GOVERNMENT GRANTS 440 000 LEVA FOR NATIONAL FILM ARCHIVE RESTORATION AND CONSERVATION
The Bulgarian Government granted an additional 440 000 leva to the budget of the Ministry of Culture for 2007. The money would be used to finance the long-term programme for restoration of the Bulgarian National Film Archive's film fund, a press statement from the Council of Ministers said.
390 000 leva will be used for the restoration, conservation and transferring of the remaining part of the nitrate film archive to new storage media. This is necessary as the nitrate film reel is not only flammable and self-igniting, but it is decomposing.
The remaining 50 000 leva will be used to transfer the most precious part of the Bulgarian National Film Archive's documentary archive to modern storage media in order for it to be permanently stored and accessible for use.
The money is provided by restructuring the target expenditures in the central budget for 2007.
26 octobre 2007
Bulgarian Khans' Treasures on Display in Sofia Gallery
26 October 2007, Friday
 Magnificent golden copies of Bulgarian khans' treasures have been exhibited in the gallery of Eibank in Bulgaria's capital city of Sofia. Photo by Kameliya Atanasova (Sofia Photo Agency) | buy photo | |
Magnificent golden copies of Bulgarian khans' treasures have been exhibited in the gallery of EIBank in the capital city of Sofia.
The exhibition is a joint project of the bank, which hosts it, and Bulgaria's National Museum of History.
One of the collections contains more than 700 gold and silver objects that are among the most precious archaeological finds, discovered in 20th century.
The treasure belonged to Khan Kubrat and was unearthed in Ukraine in 1912. It is now being preserved State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.
The other collection on display dates from later times and comprises 23 golden utensils with unique decoration. It was discovered on the territory of the Carpathian lowlands.
The copies of all the relics are property of Bulgaria's National Museum of History.
Visitors will be able to enjoy the exhibition until October 31.
http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=86840
23 septembre 2007
Bulgaria’s Veliko Tarnovo will present with charter
| 22 September 2007 | 15:59 | FOCUS News Agency |
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Veliko Tarnovo. On today’s holiday September 22nd, Bulgaria’s Independence Day, the administration of the northern Bulgarian town of Veliko Tarnovo revived the tradition to present with a charter of Veliko Tarnovo (see the photo), a journalist of Focus News Agency reported. |
08 septembre 2007
On this day in 1964 the Bulgarian national anthem was adopted
| 8 September 2007 | 03:03 | FOCUS News Agency |
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On this day in 1964 the Bulgarian national anthem was adopted. Dear Motherland or Dear Native land is the current Bulgarian national anthem. The anthem is composed and written by Tsvetan Radoslavov. The lyrics has been changed numerous times, last time in 1990. |
Seuthopolis
In the 1940s, archaeologists discovered the ancient city of Seuthopolis, the capital seat of the Odrysian Kingdom beginning in the 4th century BCE.
Unfortunately, the discovery came too late, because under construction nearby was a reservoir dam, which would soon flood the valley and drown “the best preserved Thracian city in modern Bulgaria.”
Now over half a century later, a project proposed by Bulgarian architect Zheko Tilev would uncover and preserve the ruins using “a circular dam wall, resembling a well on the bottom of which, as on a stage, is presented the historical epic of Seuthopolis.”
“Approaching the surrounding ring by boat from the shore Seuthopolis is completely hidden for the eye. But the view from the wall is breathtaking - with its scale, comprehensiveness and unique point of view; from the boundary between past and present. The possibility to see the city from the height of 20 meters allows the perception of its entirety.”
Once there, and if your interest in exploring archaeological sites wanes considerably faster than expected, there are other things to do on the ring-wall. For instance, there will be restaurants, cafes, shops, bike rental facilities, and also other facilities for various recreational sports and fishing.
Programmed as “a unique modern tourist complex,” the ring-wall will also house a museum, a hotel complex, open-air exhibitions, concert and festival halls, conference centers, and hanging gardens.
Three sites where this should be done as well: 1) New Orleans (i.e., having abandoned the city, its inhabitants now live and work and die on grossly heightened and fattened levees; everyone will laugh at them, but when the deluge comes, they will have the last laugh); 2) Alexandria; and 3) Yonagumi (i.e., if it's actually manmade).
29 août 2007
Tomb raiders strip Bulgaria of its treasures
29 August 2007 | 10:44 | Telegraf.co.uk/ FOCUS News Agency
By Malcolm Moore in Sofia
Among the paperclips in the bottom drawer of a desk in Bulgaria's National History Museum is a small cardboard box packed with 5,000-year-old gold rings.
"We found 25,000 of them when we went into a grocery shop a couple of months ago," said Svetla Tsaneva-Dimitrova, the head of the museum's restoration team.
"A farmer's wife was wearing them as a necklace. Her husband had just dug them up in a field nearby. As you can imagine, we were stunned."
Each tiny gold ring is 23-carat gold, but nobody knows how they were crafted.
"Modern jewelers cannot make these things without a magnifying glass," said Miss Tsaneva-Dimitrova, adding that similar rings were discovered at Troy.
Found at the same time was a small 20-carat gold dagger from 3,000BC that is "still so sharp you can shave with it."
Priceless antiques are strewn all over the chaotic laboratory, as restorers are hard at work on a pair of bronze greaves, or leg amour, engraved with the image of Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom.
Bulgaria, which was once part of Ancient Thrace, ranks behind only Italy and Greece in Europe in terms of the numbers of antiquities lying in its soil.
The Thracians, who included Spartacus and Orpheus, had a highly advanced civilization and fought with Alexander the Great on his expedition to Asia. Later, the country was ruled by the Romans, Persians, Byzantines and Turks, all of whom left a rich array of treasure behind.
However, since the collapse of the Soviet empire, little attention has been paid to Bulgaria's cultural heritage.
Although the law states that all archaeological finds belong to the state, much is being smuggled abroad.
Tens of thousands of tomb raiders are systematically stripping Bulgaria. In some parts of the country, whole villages have taken up tomb-raiding and many of the digs are organized by the local mafia.
Volodia Velkov, the head of the police unit that combats organized crime, said tomb-raiding was now generating about £4 billion a year for the crime syndicates.
Mr Velkov and a team of 30 officers are trying to track looted antiquities and stop them leaving the country.
"Since last October, when we started the new department, we have seized 16,000 artefacts," he said.
"More than 30,000 people are involved in tomb-raiding. The business is very well-organized and the expeditions are financed by rich Bulgarians living in the US, Britain and Germany."
Last Friday, a 43-year-old man was caught trying to smuggle more than 100 items into Germany in special compartments within the floor of a lorry. Police found antiquities dating back to 300BC, worth £345,000.
"The main route is through Germany, where there are huge warehouses full of our antiquities," said Mr Velkov.
Miss Tsaneva-Dimitrova said her country was losing the battle: "Some of my former colleagues are now working for treasure hunters.
"They have better equipment than us. Recently we found traces at a site of a military digging machine, of which there are only two in the country," she said.
The treasures can easily be found in the hands of foreign antiques dealers and on the internet. Yesterday, several Thracian items were available on eBay, the internet auction site.
Last November, Christie's in London was forced to withdraw a Byzantine plate after a complaint from the Bulgarian government. It was claimed that the silver plate, had been found in 1903, but it was actually dug up in 1999, according to Naiden Blagnev, a treasure hunter.
Some commentators believe the only way to stop the looting is for the Bulgarian government to license private collectors.
One advocate of this is Nikolai Ovcharov, a leading archaeologist who recently discovered the ancient altar of Dionysus at Perperikon, where Alexander the Great consulted the oracle before his expedition to Asia.
"The government cannot afford to excavate all the sites itself," he said. "So they should give out concessions and carry out rigorous checks on what is found. The longer it takes to pass a new law, the more treasure we will lose."
23 août 2007
Archaeologists Study Terrain Outside Medieval Fortress Cherven
Bulgarian News Agency
Rousse, on the Danube, August 20 (BTA) - Archaeological work in the medieval town of Cherven this summer will focus on studying the type of construction and the periods of human habitation in the saddle between the two parts of the inner town, the fortified and the non-fortified, head of the archaeological team Stoyan Yordanov said. This will be the first such research on the territory of the fortress.
Archaeologists will also try to establish how the northern water supply pass of the town was connected to the inhabited areas. Work will also involve stratigraphy. The topmost layer uncovered by archaeologists is dated to the early Ottoman period (the 15th century), the last uncovered layer is the Thracian, dated to the 3rd-4th century BC. There are several layers dated during the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1396) which suggest that habitation was suspended.
British students have been working on the site of Cherven for several years now. Cherven is located on the Cherni Lom (Black Lom) River. The Thracians were the first inhabitants of the fertile valley. The fortress itself was built in the 6th century by Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. During the Second Bulgarian Empire Cherven was one of the most important military, religious and economic centres in Bulgaria.
http://medievalnews.blogspot.com/2007/08/archaeologists-study-terrain-outside.html
18 août 2007
Bulgarian Eco-Activists Do the Conga along Strandzha Border
Bulgarian environmental activists plan to encircle with their bodies Strandzha national park in protest against the lack of a plan for its further development.
The Strandzha natural park, covering 5.400 hectares of land near the border with Turkey in southeastern Bulgaria, is home to historical landmarks and unique natural monuments. It hit the headlines in June this year after a court decision to revoke the statute of its parts as protected areas triggered a series of protests in Sofia streets.
The chain will trace the park borders as outlined in the papers of the municipality of Tsarevo, starting from the seaside, going through the Tsarevo-Varvara road and along the forest areas.
The initiative will repeat on a larger scale the one from the middle of July when environmental activists made a conga line 200 meters long marching through Sofia's pedestrian area.
http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=84321