Lost Palace of Thracian King Unearthed in Bulgaria

VRATSA, BULGARIA—BNT News reports that Bulgarian archaeologists may have made one of the most spectacular discoveries in the country’s recent history—a palace and tomb belonging to a powerful Thracian king for which researchers had been searching for five decades. The breakthrough came during construction of a new apartment building in the city of Vratsa. The team initially encountered a late medieval necropolis dating to the twelfth to fourteenth century a.d., which they had previously known about. Below that they uncovered a type of ancient stone platform known as a crepis. As they began removing sections of this podium, they were surprised by what they saw. “To our amazement, a magnificent structure appeared—carefully shaped stone blocks, perfectly aligned without mortar,” said Georgi Ganetsovski, director of the Vratsa Regional History Museum.” Due to its design and architecture, experts believe the structure is a royal palace that once belonged to a king of the Triballi, a fierce Iron Age Thracian tribe who inhabited parts of modern-day Bulgaria and Serbia. After the Triballi king’s death, the palace seems to have been converted into a type of mausoleum for the deceased ruler. The site is likely connected with the nearby Mogilanska Mound, which was excavated in the 1960s and found to contain three luxurious tombs filled with a trove of precious items, including a chariot and golden artifacts. To read about a finely crafted vessel found in a Roman-era Thracian tomb, go to "Bath Buddy."