Bulgaria’s Archaeology Institute Only Bidder in Tender for Rescue Excavations of Sofia Ring Road Section

Two new road construction projects – for the Western Arc (colored in green) and the Northern Tangent (colored in blue) of the Sofia Ring Road require rescue archaeological excavations in 2015. Map: Reformi.org

The National Institute and Museum of Archaeology of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences has turned out to be the only organization bidding in a tender of the Road Infrastructure Agency to conduct the rescue excavations of a future section of the Sofia Ring Road.

Bulgaria’s Road Infrastucture Agency has opened publicly the bids submitted for the rescue digs of three archaeological sites along the route of the so called Northern Tangent, a crucial 16.5 km section of the Sofia Ring Road that will connecting four highways starting at the Bulgarian capital.

One of the three known archaeological sites in question will be have to be explored with geophysical methods to check for necropolises.

The tender for the archaeological excavations of Sofia’s Northern Tangent lists an indicative price of BGN 620,000 (app. EUR 317,000). The Road Infrastructure is due to decide within 20 days on the submitted offer of Bulgaria’s Archaeology Institute, which contains a list of the similar projects it completed in the past three years.

Bulgaria’s road agency has pledged about BGN 5 million (app. EUR 2.55 million) for rescue excavations preceding the construction of the respective sections of the Struma Highway, the Maritsa Highway, and the Southern Arc and Northern Tangent of the Sofia Ring Road. Most of this funding is slated for excavations of the proposed route of the Struma Highway.

In 2014, it provided a total of BGN 5.35 million (app. EUR 2.73 million) for rescue archaeological excavations that yielded some of Bulgaria’s most important 2014 discoveries such as the discovery of the Early Neolithic city near the southwestern town of Mursalevo, on the proposed route of the Struma Highway.