Well, since I like translating stuff, I've translated two articles I read a few days ago in two newspapers and I hope they'd be interesting to you:
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A city of 8000 years was found near Aitos
The people from the Stone Age are building the first boulevards
“Standart” newspaper, 21st of January 2006
For more than 12 years priority for the Bulgarian archaeologists are the excavations, connected with the big infrastructure objects – gas-pipes, highways, railways. All the layouts in the rich in historical monuments land of ours should first be examined, before being given to the constructors. This work is not always the most pleasant for the scholars, because a man can not choose his site. But sometimes the researchers stumble upon incredible things.
In 2004 the team of Associate Professor Dr. Krassimir Leshtakov from the Sofia University starts work on the future highway “Trakia” not far from Aitos [Aitos is a Bulgarian town not far from the Black Sea coast]. For the un-tempted by the archaeology the area of Krushak near the village of Vratitsa would seem like a most normal field. Even for the specialists the village of nearly 8000 years, which is lying beneath, is hardly noticeable. The terrain is quite flat and only separate fragments of ceramics report for the ancient life. But they are completely enough clues for Dr. Leshtakov, one of the best Bulgarian prehistorian archeologists. The excavations start and the results soon amaze the scientific world. Only after two years of work the scientists are categorical that they have came across a huge settlement from the first half of the VI – the beginning of the V millennium B.C., the finale of the new-stone (Neolithic) age. It has a unique area of 30 decares, from which until 2005 they manage to uncover whole 13. The team makes a horizontal section and determines its complete structure.
At that time humans still weren’t familiar with the metal. With their primitive flint tools the ancients dig around the settlement a deep ditch. Crossing it, we stumble upon a strong fortress wall, built with carved stones with dry walling. It is 2 metres thick and the specialists presume that it reached 3-4 metres height. After that we come into the main street, which is wide whole 9 metres. Along this predecessor of the modern boulevards we reach the central square. When these were being cleared out, the archaeologists were astounded: the street and the square are covered with carefully arranged pavement. Beneath it, in the rock, are carved draining sewers for absorbing the rain water. They are 70-80 centimetres deep and are covered with stone tiles. And from the boulevard aside are leading narrow streets. Around are developing small neighbourhoods from four-five houses. The buildings are rectangular, with several rooms and considerable sizes. Krassimir Leshtakov jokes that they were built with “sliding shuttering”. Upon the stone foundations the ancient builders have gradually raised a shuttering of planks, which they filled with clay. After becoming dry, they removed the woodwork and a strong wall appeared. The roofs are from massive planks, thickly greased with clay. Every building has its own corner fireplace, wooden benches for sleeping and millstones for grinding the flour.
The biggest is the house of the priest-chieftain right beside the central square. It’s two-part, with a wooden veranda at the front and the impressive sizes 12/15 metres. In its foundation ritually was buried a stone axe, made with an incredible workmanship. And near the house are found two decorated sceptres from antler. Of course, the archaeologists are finding there the most of the cult objects. All together from the settlement are dug out over 200 clay idols, all of them of women with full forms, dressed in rich clothes. Only in the house of the priest they dig out a male idol, with a “mightily” standing penis. It is the only one, which is whole, while the ceramic ladies are intentionally pounded up. For the religious rites of the priests served also strange clay discs, of which the archaeologists find over 500. Leshtakov supposes that they might have been intended for ritual games and for prophesying.
The specialists hope to put together up to 150 whole objects of the plentiful ceramics in the settlement. Most of them are with the usual for the Neolithic age ornamentation from flutes, carved-in lines and drawings with white paint. Part of the objects, however, are shaped as human figures. People with raised for prayer hands can be seen, while others are sitting or dancing. The faces are sculptured as bird beaks, which is some specific style of this age. One such vessel is stranger and the archaeologists see in it the archetype of the cat-woman from “Batman”. Actually this is about the earliest human religion, the totemism, when people believed that their ancestors are descending from various animals.
The conclusions of the team are staggering. The found settlement is a city and one of the capitals of a mysterious culture, which developed on the Balkan Peninsula 8000 years ago. And it, itself, is a part of a great civilization, whose monuments stretch from the Near East and Egypt to Middle Europe. The ancient inhabitants of our lands trade between the Carpathians and Asia Minor. But they also war frequently between each other. At that time are appearing also the first tribal unions, predecessors of the creation of real states. For defending themselves from the attacks, the priest-chieftains are building fortresses.
Exactly such is the fortified settlement near Aitos. Leshtakov supposes that from there was ruled a large territory near the Black Sea in present South-Eastern Bulgaria.
The settlement existed for around 300 years. The excavations show that it dies in one of the military conflicts. The buildings are burnt so cruelly that the plaster has become glazed. Later the survivors try to restore it, but they fail. At the end the last citizens move out and the ruins preserve for millenniums their ancient secrets.
Before the construction they ritually kill a woman
The research showed that before the beginning of the constructions, the ancient people have offered to the gods a human sacrifice. This is a 24-25 year old woman, whose body after the sacrifice has been dismembered to three. Then the separate parts were carefully laid in a specially dug in the rock pit. Exactly near the covered with soil pit the builders form the central square of the settlement.
The culture of the Neolith comes from the east
With the fastest temp the culture of the Neolith develops in the countries from the Near East. There earlier than the rest of the world appear the farming and stock-breeding. Already in the VI-V millennium B.C. in Iran and Iraq there is a developed Neolithic culture with clay houses, painted ceramics and numerous female statuettes. Around the V millennium B.C. the farming tribes inhabit Egypt. The excavations of the archaeologists show that the present Bulgarian lands are also a part of this process.
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A Vratsa woman on 7800 years with the smile of Julia Roberts
The oldest skeleton in Bulgaria received an artistic nickname because of the characteristic bite, but they also found caries
The archaeologist, who stumbled upon the find, insists her name to be Todorka
“Monitor” newspaper, 21st of January 2006
There probably isn’t a man, who hasn’t dreamt as a child to be an adventurer, archaeologist and explorer at least for a short time. For some this happens after another read of the famous book “The mines of King Solomon”, for others – after some of the stories for the discoverer of Troy – Schliemann or after the pictures with the film adventures of Harrison Ford in the role of the wild archaeologist Indiana Jones. For most of the people this desire stays only a dream and is limited only to the exploration search in grandma’s dusty attic or in some abandoned house. But others are definitely steadier in their desires. They, although the times here are hard and for things like archaeology there are no money, continue to run after their dreams and manage to dive in the vast sea of history and excavations. Georgi Ganetsovski from the historical museum in Vratsa [a town in the North-Western part of Bulgaria] is among the people, which have chosen science as their road. Thus they have dedicated themselves to a not very rich life, despite the possibility to wash dishes in Canada, for example. And most of all – they don’t regret their choice. According to Ganetsovski the archaeology is a sum from a lot of knowledge, experience, sense and a big dose of luck.
This combination for him is certainly in ideal proportions, because the young archaeologist is the man, who found the oldest skeleton in Bulgaria – near the Vratsa village of Ohoden. It is 7800 years old and it is a real miracle that it is so well preserved.
The world agencies reported: The prehistoric Julia Roberts is found in Bulgaria. As you can guess, the connection between the two “ladies” or more precisely - the similarity, because of which the “girl” from Ohoden received the name of the Hollywood celebrity, is her bite. The actress is famous as the woman, if not with the most beautiful, then with the most impressing smile. The Bulgarian Julia Roberts doesn’t fall back at all and has wonderful teeth, preserved intact through the ages.
“Well, they aren’t exactly intact”, explains her founder. On one of the wisdom-teeth has a caries – the first archaeological caries ever found here.
“This is one small part of the unique of the find”, adds Ganetsovski and passes with laughter the question whether there were, in the times of our Julia Roberts, dentists and should we expect the finding of the first tooth filling. The archaeologist decides however to make one specification.
“When we found the skeleton, the name Julia Roberts went slightly as a joke. We insist that it’s on Bulgarian and that’s why we called her Todorka. Furthermore, this name comes from Teodora or in other words “gift from God”, what she really is for us”, explains Georgi.
When a name is being given, of course, there should be a godfather. For Todorka this is one of the workers, which took part in the excavations.
“I gathered them and I them that they should choose after who shall the skeleton be named. The name came from itself, because the one, who first reached it and even damaged one of the bones with a shovel, is named Todor – from there Todorka”, Ganetsovski describes the rituals for the “baptism” of the find.
Actually the finding of Todorka is a result of long years of work. It seems that from the qualities necessary for the archaeologists, which we mentioned above, the smallest is the role of luck. Already in 1994 Georgi Ganetsovski receives signals from local villagers that near the village of Ohoden there is something. What, in that moment he couldn’t even guess. The excavations start only after eight years, after a solid study of the terrain. The reason for the delay however is the most usual and prosaic – lack of money.
Due to this reason the archaeologists think of a clever way to fund themselves. They post advertisements in Internet that they’re organizing archaeological tourism and a few Swedes and Austrians end up in Bulgaria, with the desire to take part in the excavations against payment.
Anyway, in the summer of 2002 the team of Georgi Ganetsovski starts to excavate the solar terrace over the river Skut, just a few kilometres from Ohoden.
The beginning isn’t easy, but the big breakthrough comes in 2004. This happens after the team wins a project of the Ministry of Culture with the promising finds, found until then.
The first big discovery is an ancient dwelling. Many parts of objects are found in it, which give answers to the questions how did people live then and what they worked. It’s around 40 square metres big and is made from wooden stakes and beams.
“From pieces of clay we found traces of stick-intertwining. This shows that the walls were intertwined from wood and after that they were tightened with clay. Thus the house was very well heat-isolated both in the summer and in the winter”, says Ganetsovski.
A real furore causes, however, the next discovery – a drainage system was made in the dwelling. Before they erected their house, the ancients have made a ditch. Above it they’ve put joists, which would serve them as a floor and have plastered them with clay. Thus, when it rained, the water poured down in the hole and the dwelling remained dry.
At around 30 metres north-west of the house the archaeologists discover another new find and expect this to be another dwelling, but it turns out to be Todorka’s tomb. The unique here is that there were found traces of wooden columns, which were around 40 centimetres thick. They were a part of a corridor, which lead to the chamber with the body. How were they made, no one can tell for now. With the discovery of the skeleton the surprise of the archaeologists grows more and more.
“The traces, which we found, speak that there was a ritual burial and feast. The people ate and drunk, after which they threw all the bones and ceramic containers in the grave and sealed it”, says Georgi Ganetsovski.
The scientists have discovered that two cults have been honoured with this burial. Todorka is placed in an oval hole, which symbolizes the mother’s womb and is the cult to the mother, to the female beginning. But from another side the head of the “beauty” is turned east to the sunrise, which is the cult to the sun or the male beginning. “This shows that the burial is also a prayer for fertility”, the archaeologists believe.
The fact that a mausoleum has been built for Todorka, for which no one knew before that such were being built 8000 years ago, speaks that she was much respected by her tribe.
The anthropological analysis of the skeleton made by Prof. Iordan Iordanov showed that it is of a woman with the height of 153 cm. and around 25-30 years of age. For our time this is a young woman, but in those ancient times people reached 35 at the best and gave birth at 12. That’s why it could be suggested that Todorka was an elderly, old woman. The lavish burial, which she received, speaks for a high place in the tribal hierarchy.
Her jaw, with beautiful teeth, is protruding forward, which is a sign that she’s from a Mediterranean type and not from Indo-European, from which we, the Bulgarians, are. It’s very characteristic that her teeth are quite worn out, which points to a large consumption of roots. According to the scientists, this could be due also to the method, through which the ancients have tanned the hides – they chewed them.
For the extraction of Todorka out of the grave, the scientists have used a unique method, through which they don’t touch the bones, but the whole skeleton, exactly as it has been laid, is being undermined and lifted.
“This is done for the first time [in Bulgaria, probably]. In Greece there are only attempts in this direction. A whole bunch of journalists poured in during the lifting, I was going to have a heart-attack, because everything was put at a stake. We would either make something unique or we would completely fail and lose the find”, Georgi Ganetsovski explains. Fortunately for him and his colleagues, everything went all right and Todorka is now exhibited in the Historical Museum in Vratsa. It’s worth to note here another achievement and good idea of the Vratsa archaeologists. The skeleton is placed in a glass-case, filled with the argon gas, which would preserve it from the appearance of bacteria and other micro-organisms, which could ruin it. Pieces of ceramics could be seen around it and also coals, left after the performance of the ancient burial rituals.
“The findings near Ohoden are unique. They prove the theory that the first farmers have lived here and the most important thing is that the first bearers of the European civilization start from here”, explains Georgi Ganetsovski. According to him the people, whose dwelling was found and from which Todorka is a part of, are among the first, which start cultivating the land and breeding animals. Bones from cattle were found and also seeds of plums, cornel-tree and the “goritsvet” plant, which is characteristic for the regions around the Mediterranean Sea”.
“These people came from the Near East and Asia Minor along the valleys of the Struma and Vardar rivers. Until now such settlements were found in Serbia. The missing link in the chain for this first big migration of peoples was exactly here”, the archaeologist Ganetsovski says.
Undeniable are the facts that Todorka and her family are among the first, which conquered small pieces of land, in order to cultivate their production. They are those, which first stop their nomadic life, they stop following the animal herds and start breeding them near their homes.
And third, they’re among the first, which make ceramic containers, which is a sign fore one more developed technology. The so called microliths of the trapezium type have also been found in the ancient dwelling. According to Georgi Ganetsovski they were used for tips of arrows and for their times they had the value, which diamonds have today.
The other impressive find is one type of flint, which could be found near the town of Razgrad. Its appearance in Vratsa could be explained only with the existence of trade at that time.
The civilization of Todorka-Julia Roberts has disappeared 2000 years after her burial.
Reason – the ice caps of the planet start melting and many lakes appear. The dry land is becoming less and less and the people start waging wars between each other for territory. The end comes after the invasion of the horse people from the north. At that time starts also the ethno-genesis of the Thracians, whose domination would start a short after.
The archaeologist Georgi Ganetsovski: There will be more findings, but money are needed
“Expect many other new and interesting findings to come out from the excavations at Ohoden. Until now we’ve excavated only 175 square metres, but the whole ancient settlement is probably based on over 10 000. However, it’s a problem that for science in Bulgaria there are no money”, explains the discoverer Georgi Ganetsovski. For the two years of research of the dwelling and the mausoleum of Todorka, the state has given 3000 levs, which is clear by even the simplest account that it wouldn’t be enough even only for the salaries.
“The changes in the law give a possibility to the Bulgarian patrons to sponsor such expeditions and we urge those, who can, to help us, so that we could continue”, says the archaeologist. He adds that they will continue looking for foreigners, which want to take part and feel the thrill of unearthing history.
The construction of the ancients proves to be a mystery
The archaeologists from the Historical Museum of Vratsa have made another experiment. They tried to rebuild the found ancient dwelling, but not with modern technologies, rather the way it was made by the people nearly 8000 years ago. The experiment however proved to be unsuccessful.
The scientists made somehow the tools – hatchets and adzes, the way they were at that time, but they had a great problem with the processing of the wooden material.
“80% of the material, which they used, was oak and it was very solid. All our attempts to do anything, whatever it is, with them failed. How did the ancient people do it remains a mystery”, the archaeologists say.
