Diana Gergova - archaeologist trachologist
Hello,
When I was a student, for the first time the Thracians, called by the father of history Herodotus – the most numerous people after the Indian one, was talked about more. How true were the stories of the ancient authors that have come down to us, some seemingly incredible?
My path to the Thracian sacraments began at a time when the creation of the discipline of trachology in the 1970s was connected with support and sufficient finances, but this did not mean that there were no obstacles.
Which of the stories of the ancient authors about the Thracians are true and which are not?
I tried to get answers to their stories about some of the most interesting tribes related to Thracian beliefs.
Thus, in the Sboryanovo reserve near Isperih, my studies of various beliefs, including the Sveshtari tomb, allowed us to discover the capital of the immortalization Thracian Getae – “Dausdava” /City of Wolves/ from the ninth map of Claudius Ptolemy. It was designed with a scope by the Getae ruler from the second half of the 4th century BC. – Kotela, whose tomb and unique gold gifts for the gods, placed in a box in the crown of a sacred oak tree, we found under the highest in the royal necropolis a Great Sveshtari Mound.
For more than a century, the famous sanctuary of Dionysus, guarded by the bessies – priests, warriors of God and miners, has been sought. The finds found in the sanctuary of Mount Ostrets, near Velingrad, located on one of the most important Rhodope roads, which show a connection with Dionysus, are numerous, and some of them, such as the Iron Wand with Snakes and the dedicatory inscription of God on clay Preshmen, are also unique. The future will say if I am right, but for now this is the most open hypothesis about the identification of the sanctuary with what Herodotus mentioned.
Along with these results, there are endless efforts to preserve and show our wonderful archaeological discoveries and antiquities to ours and the generations after us – not only mine, but also my colleagues, for which we need the power of everyone’s empathy.
Diana Gergova
Books
"The Getae who Immortalize"
The Discoveries in the Spiritual and Political Capital of the Getae Dausdava-Helis.
Until less than 50 years ago, no one could have imagined that in the northwestern Thracian territory the Getae created their extraordinary capital from the 1st millennium BC. Hr. , which can certainly be identified with the long-sought Dausdava (“City of Wolves or of Light”) from the IX map of the Roman geographer Cl. Ptolemy.
The large-scale studies, after the discovery of the The Thracian Tomb of Svestari in 1982 in the area around it, found that at the end of the 2nd millennium BC. Hr. The Getae built a complex of sanctuaries, cult places, later the Hellenistic city of Helis, and erected mounds in groups – reflections of bright constellations in the spirit of the Orphic doctrine of the immortality of the soul, of harmony with nature and the cosmos.