ANCIENT COMPLEX, INCLUDING 3 SITES: TEMPLE-WELL, ROMAN BATH and LATE ANCIENT FORTRESS TOWER

Overview

The Garlen temple-well is an archeological site, dating to the Late Bronze Age, located north of the village of Garlo, Pernik region (Bulgaria). The site is an underground vaulted room (tolos), built above a well, to which a staircase (dromos) leads. Its discoverer, Prof. Mitova-Djonova, associated it with an early phase of culture, which later built the Nuraghi buildings preserved on the island of Sardinia. The remarkable resemblance to the covered well at Balao gives grounds for dating to the twelfth-tenth century BC. Cultural-historical interpretations of the building remain largely hypothetical due to unsystematic scientific research giving rise to dating to the twelfth-tenth century BC. Cultural-historical interpretations of construction remain largely hypothetical due to unsystematic research.

The Garlen temple well is radically different from all similar Sardinian sites in its field location. On the island of Sardinia, all the sacred wells are located on a perfectly flat plateau. According to Eng. Lyubomir Tsonev, this is its uniqueness - the facility is half-dug in a steep mountain slope and its construction was extremely complex. The architectural realization of the facility is not typical for the Thracian culture, which developed in the Balkans after the XV century BC. Hr. The temple-well has no previous architectural facilities of the same type, nor subsequent ones. In the Balkans, the facility is a unique architectural monument.

Numerous articles by Eng. Lyubomir Tsonev, who is one of the initiators of the Balkan Megaliths project, played an important role in the promotion of the site after 2004.

The cult facility was discovered during excavations in 1972 by a scientific team led by Prof. Dr. Dimitrina Mitova-Djonova in the area of ​​Pusto Garlo west of the gorge Klisura formed by the Krasavska River, on the northern part of Greben Mountain (part of Plano- the Zavala chain), below Kula peak near the village of Garlo.

The building was originally thought to be an early variety of late Thessalian domed tombs dug into a mountain slope, but the dromos are flush with the tolos. After a wide open shaft appeared on the floor, Prof. Mitova-Djonova came to the conclusion that it was a sepulchral (burial) architectural monument of a new kind - with an unusual combination of a mine grave under a large domed vault. During the archeological research, however, this initial hypothesis was rejected, as the bones of sacrificial animals were discovered, which testify to the cult character of the building.

Prof. Mitova-Djonova finds analogies of the facility in the ancient reservoirs of Mycenae and Palestine. These facilities are large in size, but they lack tolos and opeion.

During the long search for an analogue of the construction, Prof. Mitova-Djonova also came across the Proto-Sardinian culture Nuragi with its sacred wells (pozzo sacro) and during this process in 1982 the discoverer of the Garlen Temple-Well visited the island of Sardinia, where she visited many of the sacred wells and towers-nuragi located on the Mediterranean island. On the spot he found that the Temple-well at Balao fully corresponded in size and construction to the well near the village of Garlo.

According to Prof. Mitova-Djonova, the temple-well near the village of Garlo is the only sacred building, analogous and synchronous with the Proto-Sardinian well Kukkuru from Setimo San Pietro, Sardinia. Like the same Sardinian sacred building, the Garlen Temple-Well was an element of a sacred complex. West of the well on the slope until the end of the 1960s there was a stone trough built of four stone blocks, resembling a dolmen. According to the stories of locals from the village of Garlo, drawings were painted on the rock massif above the well. About 700 - 800 m northwest is the area of ​​Rusalim Cemetery, where broken stones (menhirs) were erected - today destroyed.

During the field research in 1972, which Prof. Mitova-Djonova carried out on the northwestern slope of Kula Peak, she noted that along the entire slope there were placers, similar to the construction material used for the construction of the well. The fact that this stone is located higher above the building, clearly reveals the existence of another, similar synchronous construction, probably the ruins of a settlement.

The northeastern slope of Kula Peak, which descends to the Garlenska Padina, is dotted with small and large springs, and during the archeological research nine springs were documented. At about 150 m. east of the temple-well was discovered a small Roman bath (supplied by groundwater), near which is the catchment of the rural water supply.

An interesting feature is that the well was built at the highest source of the mountain slope, this fact, as well as the very complex architectural plan of the construction confirm that the facility is not built to serve as an ordinary domestic pond.

The historical identification of the site is difficult. Due to the lack of such synchronous constructions, Prof. Mitova-Djonova finds similar ones - in this case constructions of objects of the same type and architecture in the same style in the Nuraghi culture on the island of Sardinia.

Ancient underground wells (pozzo di sacro) are known not only from the island of Sardinia, where they number 70. but also from several other places around the world:

• Kea Island (Κέα / Κέως), Greece

• the sanctuary of Asclepius on the territory of the Greek colony Pantikapaion near the present-day city of Kerch (located on the Crimean peninsula)

Pre-Nuragic (or Proto-Sardinian) megalithic structures have been found in:

• Al-Ahuat Israel

• The Baptistery of Carthage, Tunisia

In Sardinia, megalithic structures abounded in the Donuragic period, as early as the third millennium BC. there is a developed prehistoric culture. At the end of the II millennium BC. as a result of the invasion of the so-called Sea peoples and the island spread knowledge about the extraction and processing of metals, which is why the replacement of the old ornate tombs with the construction of nuragi towers began.

The ancient tradition connects these transformations with the migration of the Balars from northeastern Iberia (Serdan), which was inhabited by Sordonians and Keretans. Similar nuragic cultures existed during the Bronze Age in the Balearic Islands and Corsica. The most important and close parallels of the facility from the village of Garlo are found in the Nuraghi culture, on the island of Sardinia. The site is the only construction realized by the bearers of the Proto-Sardinian culture "Nuraghi" in Bulgaria and in particular on the Balkan Peninsula is of special scientific interest. The constructions of temple-wells left by the Nuragi Culture documented on the island of Sardinia are seventy in number, thirty of which are very well preserved. Their construction dates back to the period XII - X century BC. Their main components - an underground tolos, in the middle with a well, a half-covered dromos, a stone ladder in the dromos, which brings to the surface, and a rectangular vestibule in front of the dromos coincide with the construction elements of the facility near the village of Garlo. The closest analogue of the Garlen Temple-Well in terms of construction is the Temple-Well at Balao, a similar construction technique is observed at the sacred well Kukkuru at Setimo San Pietro.

The bearers of the Nuragic culture were a non-Indo-European people. It is generally believed that the Proto-Sardinian Nuraghi culture has a Mesopotamian character and that its bearers are the marine people Sardeni / Sardeni / Sordoni. The Nuragic culture lasted until the migration of the Etruscans from Asia Minor to this region. Some artifacts from the Nuragic culture show analogies with Etruscan art and similar products from the Eastern Mediterranean. Similar to the Nuraghi were the Torets of Corsica, the Talai of the Balearic Islands, and the Sesiots of Pantelleria.

According to the famous Etruscan specialist in Sardinian prehistory - Prof. Massimo Palotino, the architecture of the buildings created by the Nuraghi culture was the most advanced and sophisticated of all existing in the Western Mediterranean during the Late Bronze Age, including in comparison with the ancient Greeks. originated in Sardinia after the 7th century BC.

The dating of the Garlen Well Well is debatable. According to Prof. Mitova-Djonova, the facility was built in the XII century BC. - in the late Bronze Age and is synchronous with the settlement and the rock sanctuary on the eastern slope below Kula peak. This dating presents the facility as one of the oldest buildings on the Balkan Peninsula - earlier than the dolmens - the first cemetery architecture to appear on the territory of Strandzha, Sakar, the Eastern Rhodopes and Sarnena Sredna Gora during the Iron Age, as the dating of even these facilities is too controversial.

During the archeological research of the site a fragment of a stone ax, a tree and bones of sacrificial animals were found, which according to Prof. Mitova-Djonova determines the sacred essence of the site. Based on them and its volumetric solution, the temple-well, according to Prof. Mitova-Djonova, finds a direct connection with the megalithic buildings of the Proto-Sardinian culture Nuragi and with the pre-Asian cult architecture.

The Temple-Well Garlo is published in the scientific literature dating to the 12th century BC, the Temple-Well at Balao is dated to the 9th century BC, and the sanctuary from Pantikapaion - to the 5th-6th century BC. ., while the temple-well from the village of Garlo is identified by Prof. Mitova-Djonova with the Sumerian god Enki, and the sacred well from Balao (Sardinia), as well as the other 70 wells from Sardinia are associated with an unexplained religious cult, which is indisputably associated with the worship and deification of groundwater.

Dr. Nikolay Dermendzhiev points out that the most difficult fact to explain in the monument near the village of Garlo is the technology of building the tolos - in a real vault. This method appeared much later than the estimated date of construction of the facility in the late Bronze Age. This, together with the presence of carved marks resembling Roman numerals (V and VI) near the entrance to the tolos and the possible late backfilling of the facility (in the III-IV century AD - in late Antiquity), significantly shakes the idea of ​​early dating according to Dr. Dermendzhiev.

It is not possible to date the facility using the winter and summer solstice markers, as the monument was altered once during a treasure hunt in the 1970s and a second time as part of the highly controversial restoration and conservation of the facility in the 1980s, when important structural elements have been displaced and their original location is unknown.

During the archeological research of the well, relatively few finds were found. A ceramic fragment was found in front of the entrance, which according to Prof. Mitova-Djonova has a pronounced eastern, similar character. A fragment of a brown glass cup with a diameter of 4.5 cm, dating from late Antiquity, was found in the well itself at a depth of 4 m under an embankment of quarry stone and soil. It is most probably related to the backfilling of the facility in the IV - V century AD.

A fragment of a stone ax or the tip of a plow was found at the very bottom of the well. Primitively processed oak cuttings and twigs were also found. Their splitting and sharpening reveal processing with stone cannons. According to Prof. Mitova-Djonova, the discovery of these artifacts and oak twigs at the bottom of the well is proof of its use for cult purposes.

Bones from the limbs of calves and cattle, horns and part of a skull with the horns of a bull were found next to the southern wall of the dromos in front of the entrance of the tolos. Parts of skeletons of other animal species were found in the tolos itself, including bones from three different breeds of dogs, a wolf, a bull, a wild and domestic cat, a fox, a rabbit and a water turtle.

Prof. Mitova-Djonova connects the bones of the dromos with a sacrifice to a specific deity, while the bones of the tolos belong to totem animals that remained there after the last offering, after the bearers left the area, and the natives obviously had nothing to do to this religious cult and have left the bones of the offerings intact.

At a height of 1.8 m in the tolos, to the right of the entrance, are carved 5 signs with a height of 2.5 to 5 cm, resembling the Roman numerals V, V, V and VI. The presence of these signs is perceived as the presence of numerical signs, which is interpreted as a probable calendar-astronomical purpose. The stone with the signs is not illuminated by sunlight, but it is assumed that these marks probably represent some numerical marks.

During the conservation work carried out on the site in the mid-1980s, Prof. Mitova-Djonova discovered a fragment of a ceramic tile with Sumerian cuneiform. The find was published only in 2012 by the researcher, but the preserved characters from the cuneiform letter have not been analyzed.

The underground temple-well was built in a small valley, in which many springs were available in prehistoric times. The southern part of the temple-well is dug into the ground. A corridor (dromos) with a length of 7 m, with thirteen stone steps leads to a round arched (tolos) hall - tolos, in the center of which above the spring is built a well with a depth of 5 m. The round hall has a hemispherical dome with an opening (opeion) in the center. The corridor (dromos) is covered with a false vault and is built by means of the so-called "Cyclopean technique". Above the cantilevered walls of the dromos, above its western part, in front of the entrance of the tolos, a stepped, megalithic cover has been built. Two opposite niches are designed in the walls of the dromos. The first roof slab on the ceiling of the corridor-staircase soil from ground level. Then the corridor-staircase goes underground and in the center the ceiling is the deepest underground. The wall of the dome rises to ground level, where it ends with a round light opening (opeion).

Of special scientific interest is the construction equipment used in the construction of the temple. At the entrance of the tolos and at its covering there is an arch and a hemispherical dome, built on a pressure principle.

When examining the corridor-staircase, the following transition is established - at the upper end, at the entrance, the corridor has a trapezoidal section, and the covering is made with huge megalithic type slabs (as in the roof slabs of the dolmens), which bear the weight of bending. When going down, the weight on the ceiling of the corridor increases, respectively the width of the ceiling, resp. the length of the megalithic slabs decreases. At the lower end the weight is maximum, but there the corridor already has a triangular section, the pavement is no longer flat, slab, but is made by the technique of stone wedge, whose stability is due to the narrow keystone in the center. Thus, along the staircase, the shape of its cross-section and the construction of its covering gradually change to take on the growing weight of the thicker layer of dry stone masonry covering the structure. The coating starts with a megalithic, flat coating and ends with a wedge-shaped coating. The complex constructive task of building the well is solved only with the help of dry stone masonry.

The steps, as they are in their present form, have been changed by the restorers and do not correspond to the stone steps originally built in antiquity, incl. the turn of 90 °. (There is no sign on the site, indicating both the temple itself and the reconstructions made on the ancient facility by the restorers). The width of the steps varied between 0.23 and 0.56 m, and their height - between 0.13 and 0.24 m.

The western part of the tolos (the floor inside the temple) is broken by treasure hunters.

According to Prof. Mitova-Djonova, the temple-well (although it has a completely different purpose) repeats the ancient plan of the Neolithic residential and cult architecture from Mesopotamia, which gradually after the end of the Bronze Age began to penetrate more and more to the northwest. and mainland Greece (Ancient Greece) and in a relatively early period - XIV - XII century BC. - reaches the Upper Struma regions within the boundaries of Ancient Thrace (today's Bulgarian lands). As an architectural type and construction technique, the temple-well near the village of Garlo is closest to the Mycenaean building traditions. As a cult content, however, it is an expression of adoration for groundwater. The megalithic facility has parallels both to the east of the Balkans in Palestine and to the west - in an unexpected literal analogy to the Proto-Sardinian megalithic Nuraghi culture.

The cult construction near the village of Garlo is also considered as part of the problem of the origin of the dome constructions in Thrace, which is very debatable and complex.

Location: Garlo village, GPS and the three sites fall in massif 043 on the card of the restored property of Garlo village, with a total area of ​​80 decares