Significant New Discoveries from the Rescue Excavations Along the Gas Pipeline Route near the Village of Tranak, Ruen Municipality

The excavations are being carried out by the National Archaeological Institute with Museum at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (NAIM-BAS). The scientific director is Dr. Krasimir Velkov, Director of the History Museum in Tvarditsa, and his deputy is Konstantin Gospodinov, an expert at the Regional History Museum in Burgas. The site lies almost in the centre of a basin in the Tokat Tarla locality, in the Varbitsa section of the Eastern Balkan Mountains (Stara Planina). The following features have been uncovered:
1. Part of a stone burial mound. – The mound fill consists of small and medium-sized quarried stones. These were arranged in two lines forming two burial spaces, at the northern and southern ends, in which human bones were found. Fragments of Thracian pottery dating to the Late Iron Age (5th–1st century BC) were recorded nearby.

2. An Early Christian basilica. – The basilica has three aisles and a single apse. The southern part of the east wall, together with the apse, survives to a height of 0.80 m. It was built in the opus mixtum technique, with courses of stone alternating with bands of brick, the bricks measuring 0.30 × 0.30 m. A stone reliquary containing bones (relics) was found in the apse, probably belonging to a martyr or another canonized figure. Part of a baptismal font was discovered in the south aisle, and two stone slabs bearing Latin inscriptions were found built into the western entrance of the north aisle. Throughout the ruins of the basilica there is evidence of stone robbing for reuse and of treasure-hunting activity, which has damaged the remains. The coins found, which date the basilica, are from the late 4th–5th century.

3. Medieval Christian burials (10th–11th century). Within the basilica and around it, 31 graves have been recorded. The burials follow the Christian funerary rite: inhumation, with the deceased laid supine and extended, head to the west, arms crossed. The graves contain personal items such as earrings, glass-bead necklaces and bracelets. The necropolis is provisionally dated to the 10th–11th century.

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