Archaeologists Unearth Bronze Age Homes, Medieval Bulgarian Settlement in Rescue Excavations on Hemus Highway’s Route
The excavated ruins of a 9th-10th century settlement from the period of the First Bulgarian Empire unearthed in rescue excavations on the route of the Hemus Highway in Northeast Bulgaria. Photo: Darik Radio Shumen
The archaeologists working on the rescue excavations on the projected route of the Hemus Highway in Northeast Bulgaria have found homes from the Bronze Age as well as a medieval settlement from the period of the First Bulgarian Empire.
The rescue archaeological excavations along the route of the new section of the Hemus Highway between the city of Shumen and the town of Belokopitovo in Northeast Bulgaria have been led by Assist. Prof. Lyuben Leshtakov from the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.
The archaeologists have already completed their work but the discoveries have been made public only now.
They have excavated a medieval Bulgarian settlement from the 9th-10th century AD, the period of the First Bulgarian Empire (632/680-1018 AD), as well as Bronze Age homes, reports Darik Radio Shumen.
An inter-departmental commission of the Bulgarian government has already visited the archaeological sites from the Bronze Age and the medieval Bulgarian Empire, which will remain under the Hemus Highway.
“As part of the Bronze Age architecture we revealed a burned-down house made of tree trunks stuck in the ground, and covered with wattle. We have found that the inner side of the walls was decorated with single or double rhomboids. The home had a furnace which means they had metallurgy,” Leshtakov is quoted as saying.
The construction of the 8-kilometer section of the Hemus Highway, a road designed to connect the Bulgarian capital Sofia with Varna on the Black Sea coast through Northern Bulgaria, started in 2013.
The highway section, whose construction costs BGN 65 million (app. EUR 33.2 million), is supposed to be launched on July 15, 2015. However, the deadline might not be observed because the rescue archaeological excavations took 20 days longer than originally planned.
