Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak

Every culture has its origin story, and these stories are like the pieces of a puzzle called the world. Tracing back the origin stories of any culture gives us the modern-day human an answer to how the world came to be and why things are the way they are. These origin stories are known as etiological tales. 

The etiological tales of the Thracians point out that they inhabited mostly the parts of Eastern and Southern Europe and spoke Indo – the European language. The Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak is the perfect evidence of the inhabitants of the Thracians in the Bulgarian region with a large royal Thracian necropolis. 

Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak

A current UNESCO-protected World Heritage Site, the Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak, is a vaulted-brickwork ‘beehive’ of tombs situated in central Bulgaria. The Tomb is a segment of a large royal Thracian necropolis. The ancient Greeks coined the term necropolis, the exact meaning of which is the ‘city of the dead.’ This led to the birth of the term  Thracian necropolis, a large cemetery designed with elaborate tomb monuments where the Thracian rest.

Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak is a vaulted-brickwork ‘beehive’ of tombs where the archaeologist found many thousand tombs of the Thracian aristocrats with kings and other members. The vaulted-brickwork ‘beehive’ of graves, also known as tholos, is a beautiful architecture with circular burial chambers that follows a narrow corridor. The vaulted-brickwork ‘beehive’ of tombs is decorated with murals that glimpse the Thracian cultures and burial rituals.

About the Thracian 

According to archaeological evidence, the Thracians ruled in the 1300 century BC. Descending from the Indo-European cultures. The Thracians led a large mass of land from southern Russia, Serbia, and western Turkey. The Balkan Mountain stretch spread wide in the Bulgarian region was the primary residence of the Thracians. They were also distributed in  Asia minor and some parts of Eastern Europe. The Romans and the Greeks describe the Thracian Culture as tribal. 

Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak – A World Heritage Site by UNESCO

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) is an organisation that aims at providing science, Culture, and communication information and celebrates the Culture and peace in the world, and preserves the buildings and Culture of the world. With its vigorous studies, UNESCO declares culturally rich places and the World Heritage site that needs to be maintained to protect the ancient culture of humankind and pass the information about the rich culture to a future generation. 

Places like the Taj Mahal in India, the Pyramids of Egypt, the Grand Canyon in the USA, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, etc., are some evidence of the 1007 natural and manufactured cultural places declared as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

One of these 1007 sites is the Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak inscribed with murals of splendid horses to gesture farewell with the representation of a moment of tenderness and equality by the couple seated on it. The paintings in the vaulted-brickwork ‘beehive’ of tombs are the best-kept artistic masterpiece from the Hellenistic period. A full-size replica is built nearby to preserve the sharp pictures making the Tomb unavailable for the public to view.

UNESCO has declared the site as authentic as the original construction, and the wall of the Tomb remains intact without any modification and with very well-preserved frescoes. UNESCO, at the time of declaring it as a World Heritage Site, UNESCO secured the Tomb with a permanent protective building with its principal natural value and exclusive mural decoration. This process helped to clean and strengthen the Tomb. To protect the authenticity of the Tomb, techniques that do not hamper the authenticity were used to retouch. Constant regulation of temperature is made by installing air conditioning.

Conclusion

In the valley of the Thracian Rulers around the ancient capital of Seuthopolis in the region with thousands or even more tombs of the Thracian. The term coined for it is the Thracian necropolis, the literal meaning of the Thracian city of the dead. It is a monument with rich cultural facts revealing the Thracian traditions with the Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak. The Balkan Mountain stretch spread wide in the Bulgarian region was the primary residence of the Thracians. Discovered in 1944 and awarded as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, the Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak is a 4th century BCE monument.