Thrace is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe. Bounded by the Balkan Mountains to the north, the Aegean Sea to the south, and the Black Sea to the east, it comprises present-day southeastern Bulgaria, northeastern Greece, and the European part of Turkey, roughly the Roman Province of Thrace. Lands also inhabited by ancient Thracians extended in the north to modern-day Northern Bulgaria and Romania and to the west into Macedonia.
Tourism in Bulgaria is a significant contributor to the country's economy. Situated at the crossroads of the East and West, Bulgaria has been home to many civilizations: Thracians, Greeks, Romans, Eastern Romans or Byzantines, Slavs, Bulgars, and Ottomans. The country is rich in tourist sights and historical artifacts, scattered through a relatively small and easily accessible territory. Bulgaria is internationally known for its seaside and winter resorts.
The Thracians were an Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Southeast Europe in ancient history. Thracians resided mainly in Southeast Europe in modern-day Bulgaria, Romania, N. Macedonia and northern Greece, but also in north-western Anatolia in Turkey.
The Thracian Tomb of Svestari is 2.5 kilometers (1.6 mi) southwest of the village of Sveshtari, Razgrad Province, which is 42 kilometers (26 mi) northeast of Razgrad, in northeast Bulgaria. The tomb is probably the grave of Dromichaetes who was a king of the Getae on both sides of the lower Danube around 300 BCE, and his wife, the daughter of King Lysimachus who was a general and diadochus of Alexander the Great. The tomb is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Odrysian kingdom was an ancient Thracian state that thrived between the early 5th century BC and the early 3rd / late 1st century BC. Located in present-day Bulgaria, southeastern Romania, northern Greece and European Turkey, it was a tribal amalgam dominated by the Odrysians that was the first large political entity to develop in the eastern Balkans.
Amadocus was an Odrysian ruler in Thrace, who ruled from 360 to c. 351 BC.
The Panagyurishte Treasure is a Thracian treasure.
The Rogozen Treasure, called the find of the century, is a Thracian treasure.
The Valchitran Treasure is an early Thracian treasure.
The Lukovit Treasure is a silver Thracian treasure. It was discovered in 1953 near the town of Lukovit, Lovech Province, northwestern Bulgaria.
Skudra was a province (satrapy) of the Persian Achaemenid Empire in Europe between 510s BC and 479 BC. Its name is attested in Persian and Egyptian inscriptions (an Egyptian record of c. 498–497 BC, and a list on the tomb of Darius the Great at Naqsh-e Rustam, c. 486 BC. It is believed to have comprised the lands now known as Thrace and Macedon.
Teres II or Teres III was a king of the Odrysians in Thrace from 351 BC to 341 BC.
Seuthes IV was a possible king of the Odrysians in Thrace during the 3rd century BC. Seuthes IV is an obscure figure, and the little that is known depends on inference from very limited information that may apply to him or others of the same name. Roigos, son of Seuthes, buried in the Kazanlăk Tomb, may be identified as the son of Seuthes IV, if Roigos and his tomb date to the mid-3rd century BC ; if, on the other hand, Roigos belongs in the early 3rd century BC, he could be identified as an otherwise unattested son of Seuthes III instead. In 2007, the Bulgarian archaeologist Georgi Kitov and his team excavated a Thracian burial mound known as Dalakova Mogila near the village of Topolčane near Sliven. The burial was of a royal or aristocratic warrior, buried in relative hurry with military equipment including an arrow-pierced silver helmet, a golden pectoral, various other vessels, many of them of gold, and a gold ring bearing the inscription that was eventually determined to read "Seuthes son of Teres" alongside a depiction of the owner as a bearded mature man with a possibly receding hairline. The date of the burial is uncertain. If it belongs to the 5th century BC, the Seuthes in question could be a son of the obscure Teres II, who was a contemporary of Seuthes II's father Maesades. A 4th-century BC date could make the Seuthes of the ring a son of Teres III, but he appears to be distinct from the famous Seuthes III who appears to have been buried elsewhere. An early 3rd-century BC date could make this Seuthes the son of Seuthes III's son Teres.
The history of Thracian warfare spans from the 10th century BC up to the 1st century AD in the region defined by Ancient Greek and Latin historians as Thrace. It concerns the armed conflicts of the Thracian tribes and their kingdoms in the Balkans. Apart from conflicts between Thracians and neighboring nations and tribes, numerous wars were recorded among Thracian tribes.
The Borovo Treasure, also known as the Borovo Silver Treasure, is a Thracian hoard of five matching silver-gilt items discovered in late 1974 while ploughing a field in Borovo, Bulgaria.
The Tomb of Seuthes III is located near Kazanlak, Bulgaria. Seuthes III was the King of the Odrysian Kingdom of Thrace from c. 331 to c. 300 BC and founder of the nearby Thracian city of Seuthopolis.
The gold wreaths from Thrace are jewellery wreaths found in inner Thrace, which is within present day Bulgaria. The gold wreaths were found in the mounds and tombs of aristocrats at various locations in Thrace that have been dated to a period from the latter half of the fourth century and early part third century BC.
The Golden Orphism Book is a Thracian golden artifact consisting of 6 bound sheets with total weight of 100 grams, with a size 5 to 4.5 cm, made of 23.82-karat gold. As the sheets are linked bookwise, it is considered the oldest surviving codex, or book. Its contents are related to Orphism, which existed in the Thracian and Hellenistic world. Illustrations of priests, a horse-rider, a mermaid, a harp and soldiers, as well as writing in Etruscan, hint at burial process of an aristocrat devoted to the cult of Orphism. Found when a tomb was inadvertently opened during construction of a canal in Bulgaria, the book can be seen by the public in the National Historical Museum in Sofia