Bulgarian Builder Brouhaha

Kind of surprising that a country so ‘archaeology conscious’ as Bulgaria could have this happen:

Specialists from the Yambol History Museum have prevented the destruction of a valuable archaeological site during road construction in Southeastern Bulgaria.On Monday, employees of the local “Mining Company” started to expand a road running past the Ancient Thrace town of Kabile without a permission from the Tundzha Municipality.

The company also failed to inform the regional history museum of the Yambol District.

As the road construction started, the digging machines destroyed tiles and pottery from the Ancient Thrace settlement within a 50-meter long and several meters wide area along the road in question.

The firm management said it was not aware that it was trying to expand the road through the Kabile Archeaological Reserve. A local resident, however, contacted the Yambol museum, whose director Iliya Iliev reacted immediately.The Yambol Museum is going to refer the case to Bulgaria’s National Institute for Culture Monuments.

The digging machines of the mining company came very close to destroying four graves of Thracian nobles. However, the digging was stopped in time, leaving the graves barely affected.In 341, BC the town of Kabile, a former Neolithic settlement, was founded anew by Philip II of Macedon. It was under the rule of Philip II, Alexander the Great and Lysimachus from 341 BC up to 280 BC, when it came under the control of the Thracian Odrysian kingdom from 280 BC, thus becoming one of the most important cities in Ancient Thrace.

via Bulgaria: Bulgarian Builders Almost Ruin Thrace Archaeology Site | Novinite.com .

More Coverage:

This Day in Ancient History: ante diem x kalendas maias

ante diem x kalendas maias

  • 178 A.D. — martyrdom of Epipodias at Lyons
  • 202 A.D. — martyrdom of Leonidas in Alexandria
  • 248 A.D. — second day of celebrations for Rome’s 1000th anniversary
  • ca 250 A.D. — martyrdom of Helimenas at Babylon

Happy Birthday Roma!

… and what better way to celebrate — or at least start off the celebrations — than with a bit o’ death metal from Ex Deo:

… if you’re not into death metal, just mute the sound and watch the video; it picks up a lot of the Romulus and Remus legend …

This Day in Ancient History: ante diem xi kalendas maias

ante diem xi kalendas maias

  • Parilia (a.k.a. Palilia) — originally a festival in honour of Pales (who protected shepherds and their flock), it eventually evolved — in the city of Rome, at least — into a ‘birthday of Rome’ celebration
  • 753 B.C. — traditional date for the foundation of Rome
  • 43 B.C. — pro-Caesarian forces “under” Octavian defeat the forces of Marcus Antonius at Mutina
  • 47 A.D. — Claudius celebrates the ludi Saeculares (?)
  • 148 A.D. — Antoninus Pius celebrates the 900th anniversary of Rome
  • 248 A.D. — Philip Arabus celebrates the 1000th anniversary of Rome

CONF: KOSMOS conference via the Internet!

Folks on Aegeanet already know this, but the KOSMOS conference — which was adversely affected by that unpronounceable volcano — is going to be made available online for those who have been prevented from attending (and presumably others as well). Here’s something posted to Aegeanet if you’re interested:

Dear colleagues,

You can follow KOSMOS tomorrow, Wednesday at

http://ctr.hum.ku.dk/conferences/kosmos/

We start broadcasting Wednesday 21th April 2010 at 13:00-19:00 GMT

Scandinavia and Western Europe 14:00-20:00

Greece 15:00-21:00

Philadelphia 8:00-14:00

Austin 7:00-13:00

Melbourne 22:00-04:00

NB: Thursday and Friday we will start two hours earlier to make room for all the papers which you have sent!!

Summary of Video

Marie-Louise Nosch: Dear Colleagues and dear Aegeanists. We are very sorry that you cannot be with us here in Copenhagen. Fortunately you have been so generous to share your research results and your power points with us. We will now turn the Kosmos Conference into a global event on the internet. From Wednesday we will broadcast you presentations here from the University of Copenhagen. We cannot yet tell you what internet address you must use and how to enter – we will post this information later. Please follow CTR’s homepage (http://ctr.hum.ku.dk/), so you will know how to get access. We are very sorry for this, but on the other hand, this is a great opportunity to try a new way of communication and we hope to see you all another time.

Robert Laffineur: I am very disappointed, as you might imagine, not to be able to have you all with us here in Copenhagen. This is the first time in 30 years of personal activity in Aegean Research, that a conference has to be cancelled. Maybe we should have done as the organisers of car races, who never use no. 13! But it is not a reason to lament and we decided to turn the meeting into the first experience of virtual meeting in our field. Only the papers which have been sent to us will be presented, of course, and consequently there will not be the hundred papers, which we had anticipated, but the audience will be much greater, thanks to the online presentations. I would like to thank all the people who made this possible: Marie-Louise andher collaborators in the CTR, as well as the staff of the Computer Service of University of Copenhagen. Maybe this is the beginning of a new era and maybe Aegean Research has finally entered the 21st Century.

Marie-Louise Nosch: Please join us all on Wednesday when we start the broadcast of the Aegean research on the subject of KOSMOS, Jewellery, Adornment and Textiles. It will start at 13:00 in Greenwich time, 14:00 in Western Europe, 15:00 in Greece, 08:00 in the Philadelphia and 22:00 Wednesday evening in Melbourne.

We miss you and we really hope to see you soon somewhere else in the next year.

Robert Laffineur: Thank you.

[as a side note, I hope other conferences will take note at the logistics etc. of this (all done on very short notice, obviously) and perhaps ponder making conferences and/or sessions similarly available  … I've been hoping for this for years …]