Thracian Bulgarien: Megalithische Zivilisation und ihre Dolmen Travelcontinent

13:50 | 7. August 2015 | Comment 1

Strandszha Mountain is one of the places in southeastern Europe with the best examples of megalithic culture.

Thracian Bulgaria, *Presstrip*

A trip to the south of Bulgaria led me to the traces of the mysterious Thracian culture. It’s a megalithic civilization from the early Iron Age (12th-14th century BC).

Thracian cult in Bulgaria

They are represented by dolmens and stone shrines. The local people call them dragon houses. It is interesting to note that there is a cluster of several dolmens, concentrated around the villages. There are myths that at one time these were the dwellings of winged giants – dragons with human faces that kidnapped beautiful girls.

On the traces of Thracians in Bulgaria — Begliktash, Thracian cult complex

More than 100 dolmens have been excavated in the Bulgarian part of the mountain. Dolmen are burial places, prototypes of Thracian tombs.

They belong to the megalith culture, dating back to the early Iron Age XII – VI century B.C. – They are built of huge stones roughly carved by human hands. They contain corridors and chambers and are covered with mounds of stones and earth.

These dolmens are religiously significant, as they are believed to be the primitive herons or temples of the solarchtonic imperial cult among the local Thracian population.

Cult and megalith complex

Reisen_Thracians in Bulgaria — megalith culture

Megalith temple

In the region of the town of Primorsko there are several Thracian places of worship where people in ancient times worshipped and turned to their sacred places of worship and prayer. One of them is the rock formation of the Stone Mushroom called Beglik Tash, located about ten kilometers from the town of Maliko Tarnovo.

Big stones, On the traces of Thracians in Bulgaria

Once upon a time there was also an ancient temple where the Thracians greeted the rising of the god Sun on the day of the summer solstice. This megalithic temple is often called the „Bulgarian Stonehenge“. It is believed that it was created around the XIV century BC and performed the functions of a temple, a rock calendar and a sundial.

The impressive huge stones, spread over a wide meadow near a dense forest, next to the ruins of the ancient city of Ranuli, have not yet revealed all their secrets. There are also theories that it is a sanctuary of Dionysus or the existence of an ancient observatory.

Cult complex Mishkova Niva

About 3 km southwest of the small town of Malko Tarnovo, close to the border with Turkey, is one of the most interesting monuments of the ancient Thracian culture in the region. It is the cult complex Mishkova niva..

information about European project — Mishkova niva

It really takes a good SUV to reach this hidden mystical place in the wilderness of Bulgaria. This place is associated with myths for the tomb of a goddess.

The imposing cult building was the tomb of a Thracian tribal leader, priest and hero, and later his mausoleum was converted into a temple dedicated to the god Apollo.

Huge stones of an ancient Thracian temple

traces of Thracian cult places in Bulgaria

The date of the monument could be related to V-III century B.C. and the end date to II-III A.D. The archaeological complex includes also a sanctuary, a fortified building, a fortress, a hill necropolis and ancient water pipelines. Many legends tell about hidden treasures and there are still many secrets behind this mystic place. Bulgaria is still a great mystery!