June 18, '00 - Mosaic floor in the narthex of the former 'Great basilica' (early Byzantine, late 5th cent), ruins of Heraclea Lyncestis, Bitola, FYR of Macedonia

"A floor mosaic in the narthex is the most complete symbolic presentation of the world as it was understood [in the 5th cent.]. In the centre of a rectangular field grapevines grow out of a fountain (symbolic of Christ's teachings), and peacocks (symbolic of eternal life) and deer gather around [a myth was current at that time that peacock meat won't dessicate] ... At the left and right are 5 trees rich with fruits with birds flying around (symbolic of the garden of Eden and the afterlife), and a huge red dog named Kerber (Cerberus) guards the entrance... The field is surrounded by water with medallions in which 28 marine animals are presented [see octopi at the top right and left]. The mosaic was made with stones in 27 different colours. The only “richer” ancient mosaic is found in Pompeii - a wall mosaic made with stones in 32 colours. This mosaic is @ 100 m.s in length." (Wikipedia)

- High def scan

- The site is renowned for the floor mosaics in the ruins of the early Byzantine 'Small' and 'Great Basilicas'. The former has a floor in one room laid in the technique of "opus sectile", and in another in "opus tessellatum." "The Great Basilica is a monumental building with a room of open porch colonnades, an exonarthex, a narthex [this], 2 north annexes, and a room of 3 south annexes." The Great Basilica was built atop a pre-existing church /b/ the 4th and 6th cent.s." There are also 3 rooms with mosaics in the ruins of the 'Episcopacy residence.' (Wikipedia)

- www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqZ1G-U7GgM

 

- The city of Bitola is @ 2 km.s north of the ruins of the ancient city of Heraclea Lyncestis, which was initially "founded [and named] by Philip II of Macedon in the mid 4th-cent. BC. The name Lyncestis derives from the name of the ancient kingdom ['the land of the lynx'. ie. 'the Balkan lynx', which was prevalent here in that period], also conquered by Philip, where the city was built. It was a strategically important town during the Hellenistic period, as it was at the edge of Macedon's border with Epirus to the west and Paeonia to the north, until the Roman conquest in 168 BC. The Romans divided Macedonia into 4 regions and Heraclea was in the province of Macedonia Prima. The primary Roman road in the area, Via Egnatia, passed through Heraclea, and the city grew prosperous as a supply depot and from trade along that route. Roman-era ruins excavated at the site include votive monuments, a portico, thermae (baths), a theatre, and town walls. The Roman emperor Hadrian built a theatre on a hill in the center of the town, at a time when many buildings in the Roman province of Macedonia were being restored. A small bone ticket for a seat in the 14th row (of 20) was found in 1931. The theatre itself was only discovered in 1968. Inside it were 3 animal cages [!] and a tunnel. The theatre went out of use in the late 4th cent. when gladiator fights and pagan entertainment and rituals were banned in the Roman Empire. (Wikipedia) The ruins also include those of a forum, and a street lined with several bldg.s with the well-preserved lower portions and foundations of walls and with marble columns in some of the room, one of which I recall was a former courtroom. (I'll scan a photo). I recall 2 headless statues: 1. of benefactor and 2-time arch-priest Titus Flavius Orestes, and 2. one of Nemesis, goddess of justice and destiny. There's an on-site museum which I don't recall.

- In the early Byzantine period (4th-6th cent.s AD) Heraclea became an important episcopal seat while it remained a waypoint on the Via Egnatia. The ruins of the small and great basilicas, the bishop's residence, a funerary basilica, and a necropolis date from this period. The city was sacked in 472 by Ostrogoth/Visigoth forces commanded by Theodoric the Great, and again in 479, notwithstanding the large gift given to him by the city's bishop. The city was restored in the late 5th and early 6th cent.s, but was gradually abandoned following an earthquake in 518 AD. The last coin issued in the city dates from @ 585. The Dragovites, a Slavic tribe pushed down from the north by the Avars, settled in the area on the eve of the 7th cent. (Wikipedia)

 

 

- I spent a night in Bitola and most of a full day touring the ruins of Heraclea just south of town with a locally sold guidebook. I then walked up Širok Sokak ('Wide Alley'), a central pedestrianized street where I spoke to some friendly locals, but don't recall much else in that historic town. There's a 30-m.-high Ottoman-era clock tower, the Church of St. Dimitrija (Demetrius) (1830), and much Ottoman heritage as in Skopje, incl. 2 bazaars (one covered), 5 early-to-mid-16th-cent. mosques (5! - www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWNWyEIcNWo www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FNQxR_rNwk ) and a 16th-17th cent., multi-domed hamam. "Bitola is also home to 13 consulates, which gives the city the nickname 'the city of consuls'." (Wikipedia)

 

- One of my 2 biggest misses in North Macedonia (with the mosque and Sufi medressah in Tetovo) was in the town of Kruševo only an hour, @ 55 km.s north of Bitola, the trippiest trip that is the 'Makedonium' (1974), a monument commemorating the 1903 Ilinden uprising against the Ottomans, inspired by similar structures built on the planet Zogfarb. www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BC0bC3j5U4

 

- I then travelled NE back across the country by bus from Bitola in the SW back to the Bulgarian border and further north back up to Sofia (one of my longer trips that year), and at night I think. I was in North Macedonia for only @ a week.

 

(This will be a long photo description as I saw a fair bit /b/ the border and Shipka.)

 

- I spent part of another day at least in Sofia, where I found and toured the Moorish revival and Vienna secession Central synagogue (1905-'09), the largest in SE Europe and the largest Sephardic synagogue in Europe, with seating for 1,300. (It might've been recommended by someone in a discussion /b/ visits to the city, likely Ewan and Lotje at Rila.) "Constructed on the site of an older synagogue ... after a project by Austrian architect Friedrich Grünanger, it opened officially on Sept. 9, 1909 in the presence of Tsar Ferdinand I. ... Despite the bldg,'s size, services are normally only attended by some 50 to 60 worshippers due to the aliyah of most of Bulgaria's Jews to Israel and the secular nature of the local Jewish population." (Wikipedia)

- The synagogue is lovely and ornate with marble columns and Venetian mosaics, and the custodians were friendly, but its most memorable aspect is its huge, 1.7 ton brass chandelier, the largest in the country. (I'll scan a photo.)

- www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JID5TXf0B0

 

 

- From Sofia I headed due east either by bus (I think) @ 110 clicks along the 6, or by train, to lovely Koprivshtitsa (pron. as it's spelled), a museum town and mid-19th cent. time capsule where I stayed a couple nights.

- Koprivshtitsa is said to have been founded in the late 14th cent. at the end of the 2nd Bulgarian Empire. From 1793 to 1819, the town burned 3 x and was almost entirely destroyed the 3rd time. The foundations of the current city were then laid after 1819. It's known today for its 19th cent. 'Bulgarian National Revival' architecture and atmosphere, and as one of the centres of the April 1876 uprising. In fact, "[t]he first shot of the April Uprising against Ottoman rule was fired there in 1876". The main sights in town are several 19th cent. house-museums, each surrounded by stone walls /b/ steep, cobble-stone streets. (There are "388 architectural, historical, artistic, and ethnographic monuments" in total in this town.) (Wikipedia) As in other Balkan and Turkish house-museums seen in Tryavna, Arbanasi, and Kosice, and later in Plovdiv, and in Tokat and elsewhere in Turkey, the upper rooms were bright, spacious, lined with low benches under cushions beneath rows of tall windows, with much woodwork, intricate carved ceilings as at Tryavna, rugs, samovars and such, and with a fireplace at one end, all lovely and oriental and designed and set out for gatherings of people to sit and enjoy one anothers' company. Any rebels who lived and grew up in such houses were well-to-do. I toured at least a few of the following.:

- The house-museum and birthplace of Todor Kableshkov, definitely (1845, built in 'the Plovdiv style'), with finely-carved wooden ceilings in at least 2 rooms. Kableshkov was a revolutionary leader who died in 1876 at age 25. One item on display inside is his incomplete translation of 'The Count of Monte Cristo'. (My grandfather [Mom's Dad] said that either that book or 'The man in the iron mask', I forget which, was the only novel he ever read, so I was told. [His mother and her siblings worked as kids, or at least as tweens and teens, in the textile mills in Manchester. At least one of his aunts was illiterate. ...])

- The Oslekov house, definitely (1856): The home of a wealthy merchant and his family with scenes of classical or neo-classical bldg.s in a series of exterior frescoes above the columned portico entrance, and with similar murals within.

- I don't recall it, but I toured the Theotokos ('Assumption of the Blessed Virgin') Orthodox church (1817) (I took a photo of the iconostasis), and an overgrown cemetery on the grounds. The stone tomb of the poet Dimcho Debelyanov (1887-1916) features a famous stone statue of his mother, seated and leaning forward with her left elbow on her knee and her chin resting on the inside of her wrist as she cogitates and awaits her son's return home (sculptor: Ivan Lazarov, I'll scan a photo). Debelyanov was killed near Gorno Karadjovo (Monokklisia, Greece today) in a battle with an Irish division in 1916, aged 29. His poems, collected by his friends and published posthumously in a 2-volume anthology in 1920, remain popular in Bulgaria today. (The house-museum in which he was born [1830] displays his effects, but I don't recall it.)

- I don't recall the exhibits in these, and there wasn't much if anything written in English in 2000, so they were a bit dry.

- I saw the socialist-realist, stone monument (1976) to rebel Georgi Benkovski on a height with a view over the town, a statue of the man riding on horseback at full gallop in his fez and great, billowing cape, and looking behind him with his sword in hand. (I'll scan a photo). Benkovski once said "Hey! Get up slaves! I don't want enslavement!"

 

 

- From Koprivshtitsa, I headed SE by bus, 1 1/2 hr.s, @ 87 clicks, to the historic city of Plovdiv, the 2nd largest in Bulgaria, where I stayed for a few nights. It's lovely and atmospheric, but I wish I'd known much more about its impressive ancient history when I was there, and about the sites that I could've toured but missed (although my memory's fuzzy). It's now promoted as the oldest continuously inhabited city in Europe, dating from @ 4,000 BC or earlier.

- www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o5wrLaMNlk

 

- Plovdiv is built on the site of an ancient Thracian settlement (numismatic researchers suggest the Odrysian capital Odryssa; Odrin aka Edirne has been suggested too) and on the site of a later polis founded by, and named (as Philippopolis) after, Philip II of Macedon (r. 359-'36 BC) (or later after Philip V), and which was settled by both Thracians and 2,000 Macedonians and Greeks in 342 BC. "Control of the city alternated between the Macedonian kingdom and the Thracian Odrysian kingdom in the Hellenistic period. Philip V of Macedon (r. 221-179 BC) reoccupied the city in 183 BC and his successor Perseus (r. 179-'68 BC) held the city with the Odrysians until the Roman conquest of the Macedonian kingdom in 168 BC when the Romans renamed the city Trimontia and proclaimed it the capital of the Roman province of Thracia. The city was at the centre of the road network of inland Thrace, and the strategic Via Militaris was crossed by several other roads at the site, leading to the Danube, the Aegean Sea, and the Black Sea. The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (r. 161–'80 AD) built a new wall @ the city. It was sacked during 'the crisis of the 3rd century', and following a siege by the Goths led by Cniva. The city walls were rebuilt and Christian basilicas and Roman baths were built in the 4th cent. The city was sacked again by the Huns in 441-'42. The walls were rebuilt by Justinian the Great (r. 527-'65) and the city resisted an attack by the Avars in the 580s." (wikipedia)

- "Philippopolis fell to Boris I (r. 852-'89) and the 1st Bulgarian Empire in 863. The emperor Basil the Bulgar-Slayer (r. 960-1025) used the city as a major strategic fortification, governed by the protospatharios Nikephoros Xiphias during the Byzantine–Bulgarian wars. In the mid-11th-cent., the city was attacked by the Pechenegs, who occupied it briefly around 1090. The city continued to prosper and the walls were restored in the 12th cent. According to the Latin historian of the 4th Crusade, Geoffrey of Villehardouin, Philippopolis was the 3rd largest city in the Byzantine Empire, after Constantinople and Thessalonica. The city was damaged by interloping crusaders as well as in sectarian violence between the Eastern Orthodox and the Armenian Orthodox and Paulicians. The city was destroyed by Kaloyan of Bulgaria (r. 1196-1207) in 1206 and rebuilt thereafter. In 1219, the city became the capital of the Crusader Duchy of Philippopolis, part of the Latin Empire. The 2nd Bulgarian Empire recovered the city in 1263, but lost it to Byzantine control before recapturing it in 1323. The Ottoman Empire conquered Philippopolis (Turkish: Filibe) in 1363 or '64. On Jan. 4, 1878, following the conclusion of the Russo-Turkish War, Plovdiv was liberated from Ottoman rule, but in July, 7 mos. later, it became the capital of the autonomous Ottoman region of Eastern Rumelia. In 1885, Plovdiv and Eastern Rumelia joined Bulgaria." (wikipedia)

 

- Plovdiv is home to some impressive Roman ruins, but the only one I recall is "one of the world's best-preserved ancient Roman theatres", a beauty with a great view. Constructed in @ 98 AD during the reign of Domitian, it's semi-circular with an 82 m. outer diameter, and can seat 5,000 - 7,000 on 28 concentric rows of marble seats. The theatre has a podium which supports the columns of the 'scaenae frons' (the 'stage bldg.') and which overlooks the spectators' area, consisting of 2 2-storey porticos, the 1st Roman-Ionic and the 2nd Roman-Corinthian.

- Some honorary inscriptions on the seating indicate that the theatre was used as the seat of the Thracian provincial assembly. Each section of seating had the names of the city quarters engraved on the benches so that citizens knew where they were to sit. Several stele and wall inscriptions in the theatre are written in Byzantine Greek.

- It's presumed that gladiatorial fights with animals were held in the theatre as remains of safety facilities before the first row have been uncovered. These were set in preparation for the visit of Emperor Caracalla in 214 AD. (all Wikipedia)

 

- I toured (but don't recall) the partially restored, northern, curved portion (the sphendone) of the 2nd cent. Roman stadium, one of "the largest and best preserved [Roman] bldg.s ... in the Balkan peninsula, @ 240 m.s long, 50 m.s wide, with a capacity for 30,000". The stadium is below street level and that end has been fully excavated. Built during the reign of Hadrian (r. 117-138), its 1 'stadion' in length (625 Roman feet or 600 Greek feet, @ 180 m.s), and had 14 rows of marble seats adorned with stylized lions' paws.

 

- Other Roman or more ancient ruins in town that I don't recall include those of the 1st-2nd cent. Roman forum, and the cyclopean 12th-4th cent. BC Thracian ruins on Nebet hill (a real miss). But many of the best ancient sites weren't accessible in 2000 (the 2nd-5th cent., 350-seat Odeon, restored in '04; the 3rd cent. 'Eirene house', opened to the public in '03; the floor mosaics of the 4th cent. 'Bishop's basilica', made accessible in '21; and a museum presenting the mosaics and remains of the late-5th-cent. 'Small basilica' opened in 2014).

- I also managed to miss an 11 m. tall, stone, socialist-realist Soviet soldier, 'the Alyosha' (1954-'57) standing atop a hill on the outskirts of town, and which is famous (? - Canuck vlogger Alina McLeod tours it from the 12:15 min. pt. in this video [and watch from the 2:22 to 2:52 min. pt.]: www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzfH8lR5AWU ), and yet more cool, socialist-realist output at the 'Hillock of Fraternity' (1974). www.flickr.com/photos/nicolaiona/28151969507/in/faves-979... www.flickr.com/photos/nicolaiona/28151960187/in/faves-979... It seems I didn't see Plovdiv very well.

 

- Plovdiv has become much more of a destination since 2,000 and by design. It was the 'European Capital of Culture' in 2019. What a great thing to turn the tourist cash-flow tap by just digging some things up and stabilizing or building a roof over them (whereas here in Toronto we dug up the ruins of our early 'Parliament' bldgs. and built a parking lot over them, and gutted the 'Gooderham & Worts' distillery, the best-preserved Victorian industrial heritage site in N.A., once eligible for Unesco designation, for shops, bars, condos, etc.)

 

- I saw the medieval stone walls which stand in the 'old town', and the Hisar Kapia, an 11th cent. gate built on the foundations of a Roman-era gate (and in a lovely, time-capsuley spot en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hisar_Kapia#/media/File:%D0%A5%D0%B... ), one of 3 entrances to the Roman acropolis and rebuilt in the 13th-14th cent. In the 17th and 18th cent.s, Ottoman-style houses were embedded in the remains of those old walls near the gate.

- I don't recall it (at all - ?) but I toured the lovely, baroque, 15th-cent. Dzhumaya mosque, the 5th or 6th oldest in its current form in Europe east of Spain, per Wikipedia (the oldest of those is in Derbent, the rest are in the Balkans), built during the reign of Murad II (r. 1421-'51) on the site of a demolished mosque, which in turn had been built in 1363-'64 on the site of a cathedral church following the Ottoman conquest. The mosque is a prayer hall, 33 × 27 m.s, with 9 lead-sheet-covered domes and interior, baroque murals from the late 18th or early 19th cent.s. (I'll scan a photo). www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdBxNkki2LU

- In Feb. 2014, "the mosque was attacked by a mob described as "100s of nationalists, fascists and football hooligans". 120 were detained after the attack but only 4 received minor sentences. The Grand Mufti of Bulgaria, Mustafa Haci, characterized the attack as a "pogrom"." (Wikipedia) Wtf? www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6JuB4lH1to

- "The Church of St.s Constantin and Elena [1832, Orthodox, built on the site of a Roman church from 337] was another [Bulgarian] revival highlight" (I wrote on the back of a photo 20 yr.s ago, although I don't recall it).

- I would have toured another church or 2 of 4 more Orthodox churches in town, incl. the Holy Mother of God (1844), St. Louis (R.C., 1850s, reconstructed in 1932), and St. George (Armenian Apostolic, converted from an Orthodox church in 1767) but don't recall them. www.youtube.com/watch?v=joXT396a3eQ

 

- What I recall best about Plovdiv was an abundance of the popular, 19th-cent., Ottoman-esque 'Bulgarian renaissance' architecture in the 'old town', similar to that in Koprivshtitsa but loftier. I toured the 'Regional Ethnographic museum' in the beautiful home of the merchant Argir Kuyumdzhioglu (1847), with its 12 rooms and salons, each beneath a wood-carved ceiling. (I'll scan a photo.) I think I toured another, similar museum-house or 2.

- I toured an Art gallery in Plovdiv where I bought a couple of postcards, but don't recall it.

 

- I can't understand how I missed the Archaeological museum, with its rich collection of Thracian art, incl. a portion of the golden 'Panagyurishte treasure', another real miss. (I might not have heard about it, or was it closed? It's unlike me to tour an art gallery but pass on an archaeological museum.)

 

- I visited one dark, atmospheric old antique shop in the old town a couple of times late in the day and looked through old black and white postcards (sent or dating from @ 1915 to 1930) of paintings, primarily Russian, of interesting scenes, some political (incl. Purikev's 'Unequal marriage' and Bogdanov-Belsky's 'Sunday Reading at Country School'). I accrued a collection there and gave it to my Mom at Christmas, with other things.

 

 

- From Plovdiv I took a bus late one day down the 86 to tour the famous Bachkovo Monastery ('of the Dormition of the Theotokos') in the Rhodopes mtn.s, my 3rd in Bulgaria and the 2nd largest in the country after Rila, and where I slept over-night in a private cabin (but not well. Some high school students had a late night party in the neighboring cabin.) Renowned "for the unique combination of Byzantine, Georgian and Bulgarian cultures, united by the common faith", it was founded in 1083 by Prince Gregory Pakourianos (Grigorii Bakuriani), a Byzantine statesman and military commander of Georgian origin, as a Georgian-dominated institution, and was home to a seminary. The resident Georgian and Chalcedonic Armenian monks lost control of the monastery in the 13th cent. It survived the first waves of Turkish invasion, was then looted and destroyed, and was restored near the end of the 15th cent. The founder of the Tarnovo Literary School and last patriarch of the medieval Bulgarian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Euthymius (1330-1404), exiled by the Turks, is believed to have worked in the seminary in the early 15th cent. He's buried at the monastery.

- The refectory, reconstructed in 1601, has frescoes from 1603 and displays the famous, well-preserved 'Panorama mural', the largest scenic mural in the Balkan peninsula (according to wikipedia), painted by 'Alexei Atanasov from Negush' along an outer wall in 'fresco buono', and which illustrates the history of the monastery with a bird's-eye view of it and of its out-buildings at the time it was painted in 1846. It's a valuable historical and ethnographic record for that reason as well. (I'll scan a photo of part of it.) Details include the attire of the aristocracy from Plovdiv and of the women of the Rhodopes as seen at 'the Procession of the Miraculous Icon' (see below).

- Construction of the triple-aisled-and-apsed, domed, cruciform Cathedral Church of the Virgin Mary on the site of a church destroyed by the Turks, was completed in 1604. It houses a valuable, 'wonder-working', very popular Georgian icon of 'the Virgin Mary Eleusa' which dates from 1310. (I don't recall it but bought a postcard of it, so I must've seen it.) A silver-gilt cross rising from the dome bears the inscription "Always win!" in Georgian (lol, something I didn't know). Murals in the narthex date from 1643, frescoes in the nave from 1850, and the iconostasis and other woodwork from the 18th cent.

- The Archangels' Church dates from the 13th-14th cent., the vaulted open narthex was painted by Zahari Zograf in 1841 and the interior by Master Mosko in 1846. The church of St. Nicholas (1837) has a renowned fresco of the apocalypse painted by Zograf as well.

- I don't know if I toured the only original, 11th cent. bldg. at the monastery, an ossuary 300 m.s from the main complex. It's stylistically and architecturally unique with 2 levels, a church above and a crypt below with 14 burial niches, and represents a blend of Byzantine and Georgian traditions.

- I don't recall it but I probably toured the museum on site, with its church plate, icons, books, etc.

- www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5JcOCssIEk

- I took in the complex about as well as I could (I recall it was extensive and rich in frescoes, but not much more than that) and headed back up to Plovdiv. (I wrote "Bachkovo was a disappointment somehow" on the back of a photo 20 yr.s ago.) It was as close to the heart of the Rhodopes as I would travel that trip.

- Another miss alongside my route on the 86 just south of Plovdiv, was the lofty, medieval ruin of 'Asen's fortress', with its restored church, terrace and panoramic views.

 

 

- I managed to miss every Thracian site in Bulgaria apart from Madara (but where there's almost nothing tangible to see, unless the Rider was Thracian), even when the sites were right there to be seen, such as the Thracian gold in the archaeological museum in Plovdiv and the ruins on Nebet hill, or the Sveshtari tomb near my route in the NE. (Later I'd go out of my way to tour the tomb at Kazanlak, but only a replica was open to the public.) These were among the sites and items I would've found most interesting. But most of the greatest Thracian tombs and sites had yet to be discovered or excavated or made accessible to tourists in 2000, and local archaeologists have been busy and wildly successful since then. The best example is the discovery of the Perperikon sanctuary (only 1 1/2 hr.s, 96 clicks SE of Plovdiv) in 2007 (excavations began in 2000), which fits the dimensions and the description in ancient accounts of the legendary Thracian Temple of Dionysus (who's said to have been Thracian!), one of the greatest cult sanctuaries of antiquity, 2nd only to Delphi, described by Herodotus and home to the Thracian oracle famously visited and consulted by Alexander the Great and by Guy Octavius, father to Emperor Octavian Augustus, and where it was foretold to him that his son would rule the world. It's also the site of a much more ancient sanctuary for a sun cult dating to @ 5,000 BC and is the largest megalith ensemble site in the Balkans.

 

- The 2nd greatest find made since I was @ is that of an ancient surface tomb of a ruler who might have been deified after his death, within or surrounded by a cult centre for the worship of the mythical (or semi-mythical?) Orpheus at the Thracian Tatul sanctuary, less than 10 km.s further SE of Perperikon. "Ancient sources describe the ritual of burying leaders above ground, atop a hill (rather than within a mound), as extremely rare, mentioning only Orpheus and Rhesus as two of the leaders who were buried this way, and as Orpheus was buried in Leibethra close to Olympus, it leaves only Rhesus as a candidate, though both of the characters are mythological and may have never existed." (wikipedia) (Rhesus was the mythical or semi-mythical Thracian king who in the Iliad set out with "the finest horses, as well as huge, golden armor suitable for gods rather than mortals" to fight for the Trojans but was murdered in his sleep with his men in their camp by Odysseus and Diomedes). Some now claim that the tomb is that of Orpheus (and make a good argument, see below), but I'd go out of my way to visit it even if it was only a temple to Orpheus. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldH5r4K47OQ www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbBV9Mcxusw

- "In the established tradition it is the women of Thrace who made [Orpheus] their victim. ... The dramatic version of Aeschylus, which is the earliest that we know of, told how Orpheus was a devoted sun-worshipper of Apollo the sun-god. It was his custom to ascend Mt. Pangaion first thing every morning to greet the sun. In this he incurred the wrath of Dionysus, who was winning Thrace to his own wild religion, and Dionysus sent against him his savage women converts, the Maenads. These tore him to pieces, as in their orgies they were accustomed to dismember animals, and as in the Bacchae of Euripides they tear Pentheus. ... Konon mentions that [Orpheus] refused to initiate them into his mysteries, and Pausanias that he enticed their husbands away from them. ... Pausanias says that the tomb was near the town of Leibethra on Olympos. An oracle of Dionysus told the Leibethrians that if they allowed the bones of Orpheus to see the sun, the city would be destroyed. Not unnaturally, they made light of the idea, and one day it happened that the tomb was overturned and broken; whereupon ... one of the torrents of Olympos flooded and washed away the city. After this the inhabitants of the neighboring city of Dion [at the foot of Mt. Olympus] gathered the bones and gave them a fresh burial. At Dion the tomb was shown as late as the time of Pausanias himself. ... Pausanias was a traveller who visited the places he wrote about. ... According to the account of Kronon, Orpheus was buried by the Thracians. More firmly established was the claim of the Lesbians to possess [his head and his lyre] and to have erected a shrine to him on Lesbos. [The following] was the most widely spread form of the legend in antiquity.: The head and the lyre of Orpheus were thrown into the river Hebros, whence they floated across to Lesbos, the head singing as it went. The Lesbians buried the head, as Phanokles says in his poem and also a 3rd cent. writer of paradoxa, quoting the work of a local historian. ... The lyre, tradition said, had been dedicated in the temple of Apollo, 'where it was preserved for a long time'. Philostratos (3rd cent. A.D.) tells of how the head attained wide fame as an oracle. This in his time was only a tradition of the past. His story is that the prophesying was suppressed by Apollo himself. Finding that his privilege was being infringed, the god stood over the head as it spoke, and said, 'Cease from the things that are mine, for I have borne enough with thy singing.'" (William Keith Guthrie, 'Orpheus and Greek Religion: A Study of the Orphic Movement')

- It's no surprise that there would be competing, contradictory claims or accounts as to the location of the tomb or the relics of Orpheus. I've been to 2 amongst many purported locations of the head of John the Baptist (the mosque of Habib-i-Neccar in Antakya flickr.com/photos/97924400@N00/8266507656/in/photolist-dE... and Topkapi palace) and I've seen 2 amongst several where Jonah of 2nd-book-of-Kings fame was buried. And John the Baptist is likely a fair bit less mythical than Orpheus. "In 2002 Greek archaeologists announced that they had discovered the site of the ancient oracle of Orpheus on Lesbos. Some years later, however, their Bulgarian peers presented a competing theory that the location of the Orpheus oracle was in the heart of the Rhodopes, near the village of Tatul. ... A high rocky hill rises near it, crowned by one of the most peculiar megalithic structures the Thracians left on the territory of modern-day Bulgaria. A 4.5 m. high monolithic stone mass rises on the hill-top in the shape of a truncated pyramid. A semi-circular niche that overhangs a sarcophagus-like stone tomb is carved into one of its sides. ... This unusual phenomenon has been interpreted by Bulgarian historians as a 2nd-1st mill. B.C. Thracian complex of rock-carved places of worship. ... The site of a prehistoric shrine has been found below the tomb at the foot of the hill which was likely in use until the introduction of Christianity in the 6th cent. One possible explanation as to the mixing of tombs and shrine is that the ancient Thracians deified their rulers [or at least the ruler or individual in that unique hill-top grave] after they or he had died. ... One Prof. Aleksandar Fol has posited that Orpheus had been a real person who lived in the 2nd Millennium BC and had been of Thracian origin. [In fact, most ancient writers were of the belief that he had been a real person, Aristotle being an exception. His biographers were born centuries after his death. The most prominent accounts are from a late antiquity summary of a lost play from Aeschylus, the travel writer Pausanias, the Roman poet Ovid, and Diogenes Laertius.] His achievement was that he managed to reform the religion of an entire people. Before Orpheus, the Thracians had worshipped an elemental Dionysus, the god of unbridled ecstasy and darkness in both nature and the human soul. Orpheus introduced the Thracians to a new deity, a bright, spiritual god who promised everyone who followed him life after death. This was Apollo. ... Professor Fol's theory was applied to Tatul in the mid-2000s, as it was reputed to have been a shrine to Orpheus and his possible resting place. ... The sepulchral complex has no known analogue in the Balkans and it's obvious that the tomb at its height, which seems to point to the sky and the sun, was for a [V.I.P.] ... Again Orpheus worshipped Apollo, the sun-god. ... In 2005, ... villagers from Tatul [revealed] a bronze statuette which they'd found "in the area." Dating from the 1st or 2nd cent. AD, it was of a nude Greco-Roman deity with a lyre, possibly Apollo. Ovcharov [the site's archaeologist], however, interprets it as a rare image of Orpheus." vagabond.bg/searching-orpheus-3306

 

 

- From Plovdiv, I headed (hitched?) due north up the 64 towards Kazanlak via Karlovo (60 clicks, just over 1 hr. from Plovdiv), where I stayed for a night en route. Soon after I arrived in Karlovo in the evening, I came across the shuttered but well-preserved Kurshum Djamia mosque (Ottoman, 1485), the oldest bldg. in town, with a vast porch under a roof upheld by 24 columns in 4 rows of 6. (Ottoman mosques in Turkey and in the Balkans were generally so well constructed, and so well-preserved as a result, that they almost always seem to be younger than they are.)

- I met two friendly young guys in town who spoke good English, one of whom was a competitive chess player and who invited me to stay at his place for the night. We had one of the more interesting discussions I've ever had about competitive chess, which involves much memorization and can be stressful.

- I didn't stick @ the next morning to see more of Karlovo and its fair share of 'Bulgarian Renaissance' houses and cobble-stone streets, and so I missed this very-cool-indeed communist-era mosaic, 'Man and the technical age' (1978), on the side of a municipal bldg., the former 'House of Technics' (more brilliant Bulgarian modern art).: www.kathmanduandbeyond.com/municipality-karlovo-bulgaria/ Karlovo's famous today as the birthplace of the revolutionary Vasil Levski ('Lion', nee Kunchev, 1837-'73), the 'Apostle of Freedom'. Founder of the 'Internal Revolutionary Organisation', he sought to foment a nationwide uprising through a network of secret regional insurrectionary committees. "In 2007, he topped a nationwide TV poll as the all-time greatest Bulgarian." (Wikipedia). A monument with a statue and a museum are dedicated to the man in town, both of which I missed.

 

 

- From Karlovo, I traveled due east @ 55 clicks, 50 min.s along rte. 6 to Kazanlak. En route, I missed a national memorial complex (1986) dedicated to revolutionary poet Hristo Botev (1848-'76) in Kalofer, Botev's birthplace just east of Karlovo, with a lofty, soviet-socialist, granite, full-bearded statue of the man, 15 m.s high, 25 with its pedestal, and with 3 below of soldiers from successive wars (1876, 1923 and 1944). There's a popular house-museum devoted to Botev in town too.

 

 

- At Kazanlak, I headed to 'the Valley of the Thracian kings' and a replica of a well-preserved, late 4th cent. BC tomb of a Thracian nobleman, handy to the locked-up original. It's small, bee-hive-esque, @ 2.5 m.s wide and 3.5 high in its main chamber, with delicate, colourful, Hellenistic-style paintings within 2 wide concentric bands in a circle on the domed ceiling depicting a seated couple tenderly holding each other's wrists at a ritual funeral feast, attended by 4 servants, and with 2 men tending 6 horses in the outer band; 3 racing chariots pulled by 2 galloping horses each in the inner band; and alternating 4-petalled flowers and oxen-skulls in a much more narrow outer band. These were painted with mineral paints in white, red, yellow, blue and black. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldxIt_XLkj8 A narrow corridor with more murals on its walls leads to that round chamber.

- I was underwhelmed as I could only see the replica, and as it was so small (for a Unesco site). Now I wish I'd explored @ a bit more to see some of the mounds in the nearby fields, and the Koprika reservoir less than 10 km.s west of town, created in a hydro project in the '50s which flooded the ancient Thracian capital Seuthopolis, founded by Seuthes III /b/ 325 and 315 BC.

- Great finds of much ancient gold have been made in prominent mounds in 'the Valley of the Thracian kings' since I was there. It's incredible that they weren't plundered over the last 2,300 yr.s, but "there's a distinct urgency about all these recent excavations. The Bulgarian mafia has been involved in the systematic looting of tombs. More Thracian gold is stolen than saved for museums. ... There are 1000s of tumuli across Bulgaria, perhaps as many as 15,000, ... and so Bulgarian archaeologists are spoilt for choice. ..." www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuXL1mT_20w

- www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEMS92GZALM

 

- Kazanlak is best known as a centre for the production of rose oil and rose-water, and for its vast fields of rose bushes in the 'Valley of Roses'. The flowers are harvested in May and June by hand. I bought some rose oil there for my Mom or my sister. www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-1qp2TedIQ "The oil-producing rose, imported from central Asia via Persia, Syria and Turkey, found all the necessary conditions to thrive at Kazanlak - proper temperature, high moisture and light, and sandy, cinnamon-forest soils. Kazanlak rose oil has won gold medals at exhibitions in Paris, London, Philadelphia, Antwerp, Laet, and Milan." (Wikipedia) "Rose-picking/production has been an important industry in Bulgaria since at least 1650, the date of the earliest written record of industrial processing of the plant. The first Bulgarian export of rose oil was recorded in 1740, sold to a French perfume company as an ingredient for the essential oils used to create countless fragrances worn by the women of Europe." (Atlas Obscura)

- The city's home to the 'Rose museum' and to the 'Iskra town history museum' in a modernist bldg. (1981), both of which I missed. But the latter was the real miss, founded in 1901 and with finds from Seuthopolis displayed in 3 halls. :(

- Somewhere en route or in town I took a photo of a boy picking cherries high up in a cherry tree (which I'll scan).

 

From Kazanlak I headed north 12 km.s up the E85 to Shipka and the famous Shipka pass. (See the next photo.)

 

- According to this great site www.kathmanduandbeyond.com/monuments-and-memorials-near-b... there are a heap of communist-era monuments in the vicinity of Kazanlak and Shipka to the 19th cent. struggle against the Turks, and to the Russo-Turkish war. Misses incl. the dynamic 'Monument to the 1923 September Uprising' in Krân.

Done