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Excavation works along Bulgaria's Black Sea coast in 2022:

New archeological finds shed light on life near Cape Kaliakra

Photo: BNR

The excavation works on Cape Kaliakra at the northern section of Bulgaria's Black Sea coastline continue until the end of August. Numerous silver ornaments, rings, fragments of various pots and other items have so far been unearthed.

“There is evidence that 3 or 4 years after the siege of Tarnovo (1393), Kaliakra was still independent and Dobrotitsa, Despot of Dobrudja, was in power for nearly 30 years",  archaeologist Filip Petrunov, who is part of the team from the National Museum of History, explains. 

The first Black Sea fleet was also established on Kaliakra, as evidenced by coins minted in Silistra on behalf of Dobrotitsa. For the ninth consecutive year, we have been working in the eastern part of Cape Kaliakra. In 2014, archaeologists began to study an extremely rich necropolis full of luxury items, earrings, rings, etc. 


"We have uncovered a total of 135 tombs and a building dating back to the 4th-5th century AD, which was used as a manufacturing facility. We discovered the thresholds of the furnaces where metals were smelted. We have also discovered the local workshops. They are located in a ten-meter corridor. This year we came across a fragment of a pot handle with a cross typical of early Christianity in the first capital of the First Bulgarian Empire - Pliska. There are symbols around the cross written in Proto-Bulgarian letters,” archaeologist Petrunov explained in an interview for the BNR. 

All human remains found on Cape Kaliakra will be given to the Institute for Experimental Morphology, Pathology and Anthropology with the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences for analysis.



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