In a letter to the Bulgarian authorities, the International Council on Monuments and Sties (ICOMOS) expressed its concern about the country's endangered cultural heritage.Monastery of Saint Ivan of Rila is one of Bulgaria's UNESCO World Heritage sites [Credit: WikiCommons]
During its latest meeting in March, the international ICOMOS board was informed by the Bulgarian National Committee of ICOMOS about worrying trends in current policy approaches to conservation and restoration of cultural heritage sites in the country.
According to the report, these approaches had considerably and visibly endangered a number of cultural monuments in Bulgaria.
ICOMOS was particularly concerned that these policies could negatively affect the Bulgarian cultural properties designated as UNESCO World Heritage sites.
The organisation understood that these approaches were motivated by an effort to support regional development by increasing cultural tourism.
However this had resulted in a large-scale conjecture-based reconstructions on top of the ruins of archaeological sites, which had compromised the authenticity of the monuments.
ICOMOS warned that the replacement of original structures falsified history and could prevent further scientific research.
According to the organisation, such reconstructions violated the internationally accepted scientific approaches to conservation.
ICOMOS called on Bulgaria to take three steps in ensuring a sustainable policy in the field of heritage protection, which is based on internationally acknowledged principles of conservation.
Firstly, Bulgaria should end the ongoing conjecture-based reconstructions and ensure that all future conservation and restoration works in the country proceed according to accepted principles.
Next, the country should guarantee the involvement of experts in the national procedures for calls for tender under the EU operational programmes.
Lastly, Bulgaria should establish a continuous training programme in the field of heritage conservation directed at improving the capacity of local authorities.
ICOMOS expressed its willingness to help Bulgarian cultural authorities and its readiness to organise an on-site mission to the country.
Road to Miss Bulgaria World 2011 Miss Bulgaria 2011 will be crowned on June 27. The winner will represent the country in Miss World 2011 in UK. This is the group photo of twelve finalists vying for Miss Bulgaria 2011.
Special thanks and credit to missbulgaria2011.tv7.bg & beautypageantnews/
The project of the Kardzhali municipality ''Perperikon - past for the future'' received a funding approval Thursday.The ancient Thracian rock city of Perperikon in Southern Bulgaria [Credit: BGNES]
Kardzhali mayor Hasan Azis signed a EU-grant contract valued at EUR 748 203, as announced by the municipality's Press Office. The grant is provided through the financial mechanism of the European Economic Area in the field of restoration, renovation and protection of the cultural heritage of the region.
The project entails activities set to continue the preservation and social inclusion of the archaeological complex in the Bulgarian tourist map. A portion of the ancient complex will be restored, conserved and exported from the site located near the south-western part of the Acropol.
Planned activities are set to last approximately 13 months.
Bulgarian police officers have confiscated a unique 5th century BC ancient Greek krater, a special vessel used for mixing wine, from a treasure hunter in the southern town of Susam, Haskovo District.The 5th century BC Greek krater seized from a Bulgarian treasure hunter. It was probably found in a burial mound tomb of a Thracian aristocrat [Credit: Press Center of Bulgaria’s Interior Ministry]
The 33-year-old man has been arrested after the local police were tipped off, and searched his home and car.
The extremely rare ancient krater was found in the man’s car, the press center of Bulgaria’s Ministry of Interior has announced.
The ceramic vessel features a ritual scene from ancient Greek mythology.
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In the fields of Bulgaria they are everywhere -- hundreds of mounds like huge molehills concealing the gold-filled tombs of ancient kings who left no other trace of their rule.Detail of a mural in the burial chamber in a replica of the Thracian tomb of Kazanlak, dated back to the 4th century BC in the central Bulgarian town of Kazanlak [Credit: AFP/Dimitar Dilkoff]
Known as tumuli, the burial mounds are the only remnants of the Thracian civilisation that inhabited the Balkan peninsula from the 2nd millennium BC to the 3rd century AD.
The accidental discovery of a tomb in 1944 revealed that the earthen structures were in fact manmade and that the burial monuments hidden within contained intricately crafted treasures.
Experts believe there are more than 15,000 of these tombs in Bulgaria, a tenth of them in the so-called Valley of the Thracian Kings near the central town of Kazanlak.
Many of the tombs have been looted, but a collection of surviving gold, silver and bronze objects are being shown at the Louvre museum in Paris until July 20.
Of the 1,500 tumuli in the valley, "only 300 of them have been excavated so far and about 35 revealed such rich burial monuments," said Kazanlak archeologist Meglena Parvin.
EU funds have been used to restore a handful of tombs that have been opened to public view, but most remain shut because of a lack of money for repairs.
"I feel sad that they are left like that. I hope that more money will come and we can restore and open them," Parvin said.
The Thracian burial tumulus Malka Arsenalka mound, which dates back to the end of 5th century BC, near the central Bulgarian town of Kazanlak [Credit: AFP/Dimitar Dilkoff]
The Thracians were a people of horse and cattle breeders, metal miners and goldsmiths who are believed to have had no alphabet of their own and left no written records.
They believed in the afterlife and the immortality of the soul, and buried deceased rulers with their horses, dogs, weapons, drinking cups and even playing dice.
The kings were considered sons of the great goddess Mother Earth and the burial rites were highly symbolic, Parvin explained.
"When he finishes his journey in this world, the king must return to the womb of his mother. That is the reason why we think that they built these artificial mounds around their funeral structures," she said.
In addition to the treasures, the bushy tumuli also conceal a variety of exquisite burial monuments.
Built from huge granite blocks or bricks, they consist of a corridor and one or more chambers, with each revealing its own meticulous design and ornamentation.
A mural of a woman's face can be seen in the burial chamber in a Ostrusha tumulus dated back the middle of the 4th century BC, near the central Bulgarian town of Kazanlak [Credit: AFP/Dimitar Dilkoff]
"No two tombs are alike," Parvin noted, leading the way through the antechamber of the tomb in the Shushmanets mound.
Inside, a slim column helps support the vaulted ceiling of the burial chamber, the walls of which are adorned by seven half columns.
The Ostrusha tumulus nearby contained a sarcophagus-like chamber hewn from a single granite block thought to have weighed 60 tonnes.
Its ceiling contains traces of drawings of people, animals, plants and geometric figures. The remains of six other rooms surround the burial chamber, none of which have been restored as yet.
The most famous tomb in the valley is the Kazanlak tomb, which was the first to be unearthed during World War II and has been on UNESCO's World Heritage List since 1979.
The original is closed to visits to protect its fragile murals, which depict a funeral procession and a horse race, but visitors can view a replica right next door.
Tourists examine the Thracian tomb of Shushmanets, which is dated back to 4th century BC, near the central Bulgarian town of Kazanlak [Credit: AFP/Dimitar Dilkoff]
The site draws large crowds but the tourism revenue has not been converted into conservation funds, said Sofia-based archeological expert Diana Dimitrova.
"It is a pity that in Bulgaria somewhere the link is cut and the money from tourism does not go to restorations and archeological excavations," said Dimitrova, whose late husband, archaeologist Georgy Kitov, excavated most of the tombs in the Kazanlak valley and christened it the Valley of the Thracian Kings.
Dimitrova pointed to the three-chamber tomb of King Seuthes III which provided the pieces for the Louvre exhibition as an example of the problem.
A hit among foreign tourists in the years after it opened to the public in 2005, the tomb has been temporarily closed this summer while awaiting funds for emergency repairs.
"The Thracians built these splendid monumental structures to last forever," Dimitrova said.
"We cannot just uncover them and leave them like that."
The videos of Islamic State militants destroying ancient artifacts in Iraq's museums and blowing up 3,000-year-old temples are chilling enough, but one of Iraq's top antiquities officials is now saying the destruction is a cover for an even more sinister activity - the systematic looting of Iraq's cultural heritage.People observe ancient artifacts at the Iraqi National Museum after its reopening in the wake of the recent destruction of Assyrian archaeological sites by the Islamic State group in Mosul, as they visit the museum in Baghdad on March 15, 2015 [Credit: AP/Karim Kadim]
In the videos that appeared in April, militants can be seen taking sledge hammers to the iconic winged-bulls of Assyria and sawing apart floral reliefs in the palace of Ashurnasirpal II in Nimrud before the entire site is destroyed with explosives. But according to Qais Hussein Rashid, head of Iraq's State Board for Antiquities and Heritage, that was just the final step in a deeper game.
"According to our sources, the Islamic State started days before destroying this site by digging in this area, mainly the palace," he told The Associated Press from his office next to Iraq's National Museum - itself a target of looting after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein. "We think that they first started digging around these areas to get the artifacts, then they started demolishing them as a cover up."
While there is no firm evidence of the amount of money being made by the Islamic State group from looting antiquities, satellite photos and anecdotal evidence confirm widespread plundering of archaeological sites in areas under IS control.
Nimrud was also the site of one of the greatest discoveries in Iraqi history, stunning golden jewelry from a royal tomb found in 1989, and Rashid is worried that more such tombs lie beneath the site and have been plundered. He estimated the potential income from looting to be in the millions of dollars.
Experts speculate that the large pieces are destroyed with sledgehammers and drills for the benefit of the cameras, while the more portable items like figurines, masks and ancient clay cuneiform tablets are smuggled to dealers in Turkey.
The destroyed old Mosque of The Prophet Jirjis in central Mosul, Iraq, on July 27, 2014 [Credit: AP]
On Wednesday, Egypt, together with the Antiquities Coalition and the Washington-based Middle East Institute will be holding a conference in Cairo entitled "Cultural Property Under Threat" to come up with regional solutions to the plundering and sale of antiquities.
This isn't the first time, of course, that Iraq's antiquities have fallen victim to current events. There was the infamous looting of the museum in 2003 and reports of widespread plundering of archaeological sites in the subsequent years, especially in the south. U.S. investigators at the time said al-Qaida was funding its activities with illicit sales of antiquities.
What appears to be different this time is the sheer scale and systematic nature of the looting, especially in the parts of Syria controlled by the Islamic State group. Satellite photos show some sites so riddled with holes they look like a moonscape.
The G-7's Financial Action Task Force said in a February report that the Islamic State group is making money both by selling artifacts directly - as probably would be the case with material taken from the museums - or by taxing criminal gangs that dig at the sites in their territory. After oil sales, extortion and kidnapping, antiquities sales are believed to be one of the group's main sources of funding.
In February, the United Nations passed a resolution recognizing that the Islamic State group was "generating income from the direct or indirect trade," in stolen artifacts, and added a ban on the illicit sale of Syrian antiquities to the already existing one on Iraqi artifacts passed in 2003.
The face of a woman stares down at visitors in the Hatra ruins, 320 kilometres north of Baghdad, Iraq on July 27, 2005 [Credit: AP/Antonio Castaneda]
While Iraq contains remains from civilizations dating back more than 5,000 years, the hardest hit artifacts have come from the Assyrian empire, which at its height in 700 B.C. stretched from Iran to the Mediterranean and whose ancient core almost exactly covers the area now controlled by the Islamic State group.
The looted artifacts most likely follow the traditional smuggling routes for all sorts of illicit goods into Turkey, according to Lynda Albertson, head of the Association for Research into Crimes Against Art. From there, the most common route is through Bulgaria and the Balkans into Western Europe. Britain and the United States remain the biggest markets for antiquities, though wealthy collectors are emerging in China and the Gulf - especially for Islamic-era artifacts.
International bans make the ultimate sale of illicit antiquities difficult, but not impossible. So far, there have been no reports of major, museum-quality pieces from IS-held territory appearing in auction houses, so the artifacts must be going to either private collectors or they are being hoarded by dealers to be slowly and discretely released onto the market, said Patty Gerstenblith, Director of the Center for Art, Museum and Cultural Heritage Law at DePaul University.
"I do believe that dealers are willing to warehouse items for a long time and that they may be receiving some `financing' to do this from well-heeled collectors or other dealers operating outside of the Middle East," she said. "It is relatively unlikely that a major piece would be plausibly sold on the open market with a story that it was in a private collection for a long period of time."
Mesopotamian sculptures, jewelry and stelae sold legally have commanded stunning sums, up to $1 million in some cases, but the looters would be selling them to dealers for a fraction of that cost - with the profit margin coming from the sheer number of artifacts being sold.
A piece falls off from a curved face on the wall of an ancient building as a militant hammers it in Hatra, a large fortified city recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site, in Iraq on Friday, April 3, 2015 [Credit: AP/ISIS video]
Iraq has sent lists to the International Council of Museums, the U.N. and Interpol detailing all the artifacts that might have been looted from the museum in Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city overrun by IS last June. Harder to stop, however, is the sale of never-before-seen pieces that have been newly dug up and never registered.
There is new legislation going through the U.S. Congress to tighten controls on illicit trafficking of materials from the Middle East, though Albertson contends that the laws are less important than the manpower devoted to enforcing them.
"A new resolution is just another well-intentioned piece of ineffective paper," she said.
The Iraqi government is now rushing to document the remaining sites in the country, especially in the disputed province of Salahuddin, just south of the Islamic State stronghold in Nineweh province. Nineweh itself is home to 1,700 archaeological sites, all under IS control, said Rashid of the antiquities department.
As a number of experts point out, though, most sites in Iraq have not been completely excavated and there are likely more winged bull statues and stelae waiting to be found under the earthen mounds scattered throughout this country - assuming the Islamic State group and its diggers don't find them first.
Author: Paul Schemm | Source: The Associated Press [May 12, 2015]
The customs officials at Sofia Airport prevented an attempt to smuggle a priceless monetary hoard. A collection, consisting of 82 silver tetradrachms of Philip II of Macedonia (the middle of fourth century B.C.), was found by the officials of "Customs Intelligence and Investigation" department at Sofia Airport Customs House.The 82 silver tetradrachms date to the time of King Philip II of Macedonia [Credit: Bulgarian Customs Agency]
Some of the tetradrachms were minted around the years 359-336 B.C., with the obverse depicting the Macedonian King with a wreath on his head. According to the executed expert report, the seized coins belonged to a collective trouvaille.
The ancient coins were hidden inside routers destined for the United States [Credit: Bulgarian Customs Agency]
Pursuant to the Law on Cultural Heritage, each one of the tetradrachms is of extraordinary cultural, financial and scientific value.
The monetary hoard was intended for export through a courier company, which had to transport it from Bulgaria to USA. The coins were concealed inside three routers. All the tetradrachms were seized and an Administrative Offence act was drawn up.
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