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Тема
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 National Geographic: Bulgaria's Gold Rush
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| Автор |
бaш бyrapaш (мин. на проп.) |
| Публикувано | 18.11.06 17:58 |
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By A. R. Williams
Photographs by Kenneth Garrett
The race is on to uncover the golden splendors of its Thracian past before sites are looted and developers move in.
Get a taste of what awaits you in print from this compelling excerpt.
For looters, Bulgaria is El Dorado, a vast trove of buried treasure where some graves have harbored gold since at least 4000 B.C. Through the sweep of many centuries, this strategic bridge between Asia and western Europe saw a long succession of invaders, conquerors, soldiers, travelers, traders, and settlers. Thracians, Macedonians, Greeks, Romans, Persians, Slavs, Bulgars, Byzantines, and Turks all made their mark—and left artifacts that now mean money in the bank for anyone who succeeds in digging them up.
The royal tombs of the Thracians, built between the fifth and third centuries B.C., are easy marks for looters. The great overgrown beehive mounds of the tombs rise several stories high along roads and in tilled fields. In the 50-mile-long (80 kilometers) Kazanluk Valley, where Kitov works, a thousand such mounds interrupt the rose farms that bloom beneath the peaks of the Sredna Gora and Balkan Mountains. Some 25,000 more mounds are scattered throughout the rest of the country. Many show the fresh scars of illegal excavations—jagged trenches of rusty earth that cut through their tangled cover of grass and brush. Sometimes the looters break into a tomb that was already robbed in antiquity. And sometimes, instead of gold or silver, they find painted vases or bronze sculptures or fragments of murals—any of those things will earn a handsome profit on the antiquities market.
Ancient treasures are property of the state in Bulgaria, and that was once taken very seriously. In 1949 three brothers digging clay for tiles near the town of Panagyurishte uncovered nine ornate vessels of solid gold, buried for more than 2,000 years. The country had fallen under the Soviet heel only a few years before, and the new totalitarian state dealt brutally with anyone who broke the law, so the brothers dutifully turned their find over to the authorities. Back then, no one needed to run the risk of trying to sell such a windfall. Factories that produced everything from canned fruit to Kalashnikovs guaranteed full employment, and the government took care of everything else. So in 1985, when a villager in Rogozen hit a cache of 165 silver and gold vessels while working in his vegetable garden, he too handed the priceless hoard over. Both of these treasures now rest safely in museums.
Would that happen today? Probably not. When the Soviet system began to crash in 1989, it took Bulgaria down, too. Factories were forced to close, and to this day many remain empty. Hundreds of thousands of people are still unemployed, and those who have jobs earn an average of just $200 a month. With the former middle class flat broke, many have taken up looting to earn a living. They call it black archaeology. "The business of artifacts is more lucrative than drug trafficking," says Nikolai Ovcharov, a charismatic archaeologist known as Bulgaria's Indiana Jones.
Get the whole story in the pages of National Geographic magazine.
Редактирано от бaш бyrapaш на 18.11.06 18:19.
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Golden Splendor
Photograph by Kenneth Garrett
Photographed at National Archaeological Museum, Sofia
The lure of such fabulous artifacts as the solid gold mask of a fifth-century B.C.
Thracian king inspires both legal and illegal excavators.
Finding El Dorado
Photograph by Kenneth Garrett
Archaeologist Georgi Kitov counts the grave of third-century B.C. Thracian King
Seuthes III—entered through a vaulted stone hall—as one of his many finds in the
Kazanluk Valley.
Buried Treasure
Photograph by Kenneth Garrett
Photographed at National Archaeological Museum, Sofia
A noble head cast in bronze, likely severed from a life-size statue, was buried in
front of the entrance to a Thracian stone tomb in the late fourth century B.C.
Unearthed in 2004 as archaeologist Georgi Kitov began to excavate the site, near the town of Kazanluk, the finely rendered portrait offered Kitov his first hint that he was onto something extraordinary. Inside the burial chamber lay a fabulous array of royal artifacts, many of gold—a crown of delicate oak leaves and acorns, a drinking bowl, gold fibers from a carpet, and more. Inscriptions on three artifacts identify the deceased: Seuthes III, a tribal king of the Thracians.
A Culture of War
Photograph by Kenneth Garrett
Photographed at Iskra History Museum, Kazanlak
Crowned with images of the Thracian mother goddess, two bronze shin guards were interred in the tomb of King Seuthes III along with his bronze helmet, a leather breastplate, and an iron sword. Famed for their great skill, Thracian metalworkers also created ornate shin guards of silver and gold. Homer, the classical Greek writer, paid tribute to this tradition of fine military equipment when describing a Thracian king in the Iliad: "Golden is his armor that he brought with him, marvelous, a wonder to behold; such as it is in no wise fit for mortal men to bear, but for the deathless gods."
Beauty in Battle
Photograph by Kenneth Garrett
Photographed at National Museum of History, Sofia
A royal tomb near Zlatinitsa yielded a goddess-shaped shin guard.
In the Trenches
Photograph by Kenneth Garrett
In a few days of digging, Kitov's team put a trench through a ritual mound near uk. Countless sites in Thracian lands have yet to be excavated.
Looking for Traces of Thrace
Photograph by Kenneth Garrett
As a metal detector scans for riches, Kitov, in the center at right, inspects a trench dug into a Thracian mound by machine. The team found nothing, but the mound had probably covered a ritual platform.
Who Were the Thracians?
Photograph by Kenneth Garrett
Feared warriors and skilled horsemen, Thracians fought in the Trojan War against the Greeks. Centuries later, at the height of their power, they buried their rulers beneath grand stone domes such as the tomb recently discovered at Alexandrovo. After Philip II of Macedon conquered Thrace, its archers and cavalry were conscripted into the army of his son and heir, Alexander the Great. In 73 B.C., one Thracian gained immortality by leading a slave revolt against the Romans—the gladiator known as Spartacus.
Warrior Weaponry
Photograph by Kenneth Garrett
Photographed at National Museum of History, on loan from Museum of History, Lovech
Armed with a spear and bow—classic Thracian weaponry—a warrior gallops across a harness decoration of silver and gold.
Painting a Pitcher
Photograph by Kenneth Garrett
Photographed at Archaeological Museum, Sozopol
An excavation at a seaside cemetery uncovered a Greek-style pitcher with the image of a Thracian warrior.
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Дуне, нали щяхте да бойкотирате представянето на македонското наследство за българско в НГ? Сега и да се хилиш, и да не се хилиш...
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Има време , че дојде и това на дневен ред
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...ово е македонцко! Бугарите са го окрале по фашистичката си окупация на Втората светска война, после го закопале, а сега го ровят. Ово е македонцко, бугари-татари! У-у-у-у-у-у!
п.п.Нъл тъй Дунек?
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Пак че те питаме од коги почна да го зборуваш шопскио. Нал беше македонец. Сеги па стана шоп. Айде изяесни си своя произход. Или желиш да кажеш дека и ний шопите сме македонци.
Маке ти и трън.
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