Bulgaria's Cultural and Historical Heritage

Nikolay Ovcharov and Plamen Pavlov survey the archaeology and history of Bulgaria from prehistory to the Ottoman conquest in a two-part lecture delivered in Bulgarian with consecutive English interpretation, introduced by the Bulgarian ambassador to Cyprus, Christo Georgiev, for the Mission Bulgaria programme.

Ovcharov covers the prehistoric, Thracian, Roman, and early Christian periods. After remarks on Sofia (ancient Serdica), he reviews Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlements such as Ovcharovo, Polyanitsa, and Durankulak, the 7,000-year-old Varna Chalcolithic necropolis with its high-purity gold finds, and Vasil Nikolov's excavations at the contemporary salt-production site near Provadia. Moving to the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages, he presents the Valchitran gold treasure, the dolmen at Hlyabovo, and his eighteen-year excavations at the rock-cut city and sanctuary of Perperikon in the Rhodopes, alongside a womb-shaped cave sanctuary and the rock-cut sanctuary and tomb at Tatul, which he connects with Orpheus. For the Hellenistic and Roman periods, he illustrates the Kazanlak, Aleksandrovo, and Sveshtari tombs, the Panagyurishte and Rogozen treasures, Mesambria, Odessos, Augusta Traiana, Philippopolis (Plovdiv), and the Basilica of St Sophia and Rotunda of St George in Sofia.

Pavlov traces medieval Bulgaria to the 14th century, noting historical links with Cyprus: the possible Cypriot ties of the Empress Theodora, the invocation of the Cypriot Church's autonomy in 870, Bulgarian soldiers on Cyprus, and 19th-century Bulgarian revolutionaries exiled to Nicosia and aided at Larnaca. He follows the First Bulgarian Empire under Kubrat, Asparuh, Tervel, Boris-Michael, and Simeon the Great at Pliska and Preslav, the creation of the Cyrillic alphabet, and the Second Empire at Veliko Tarnovo under the Asen dynasty, concluding with the Boyana Church, the London Gospels of Ivan Alexander, and Rila Monastery.