National Historical Museum published a new book dedicated to archaeology in the Burgas Bay

The book by Prof. Dr. Ivan Hristov "Between Sozopol and Talasakra. Unknown archaeology of the Sozopol Bay and its western hinterland" presents the results of the archaeological research conducted by Prof. Hristov's team in the territory and waters of the town of Chernomorets during the period 2014 – 2025. The team also included experts from the Regional Historical Museum – Burgas. The scientific focus is on a poorly studied, yet densely archaeologically populated area around the western end of the Sozopol Bay, covering more than 300 hectares. The presentation follows the already established interdisciplinary approach applied in the author's similar previous summary publications, which trace settlement development in the coastal Black Sea zone.
Methods of field and underwater archaeology, historical geography, and geophysics have been used. In fact, the text serves as a basis to expand scientific knowledge about the location and nature of archaeological sites from different historical periods located in the surroundings of Apollonia Pontica/Sozopol.
The scientific reviewers of the book are the well-known Bulgarian historians and archaeologists Prof. Dr. Ivan Todorov and Prof. Dr. Sergey Torbatov.
Structurally, the book has five chapters. The first provides a geographical description of the hinterland and a characterization of the bay.
The second chapter provides an overview of all preserved written sources concerning the western periphery of Sozopol Bay. In the third chapter of the book, hypotheses are presented regarding the location of the so-called 'second Sozopol port,' mentioned in the 6th century in an anonymous periplus of the Black Sea. The last two chapters of the work actually present the results of the archaeological investigation of various types of archaeological sites of different chronologies, concentrated in a not very large area located at the western end of the bay. In addition to summarizing the data from previously known archaeological expeditions, the results of new excavations directly related to the topic under consideration are published here for the first time.
In the conclusion, the nature of these structures and their place in the history of the millennia-old Black Sea polis are examined. The author assumes that along the western coastal strip of the Sozopol Bay there exists a collection of archaeological sites that form a specific suburb of Apollonia Pontica/Sozopol, referred to by the Greek term "προάστ(ε)ιον" (proasteion). This is the appropriate designation for suburban development in a predominantly Greek-speaking part of the Mediterranean and Black Sea coast, in contrast to the almost identical Latin term "suburbium." Here, the connecting elements with the city are the port/ports and the coastal land route. The main territory of this proasteion covers the Chryso Sotira peninsula up to the town of Chernomorets, as well as individual structures whose description is being published for the first time.
Particularly interesting are the data on the newly discovered Roman temple and the late antique church in the Akladi area near the Gradina campsite between Sozopol and Chernomorets, studied in the autumn of 2024 by a team from the National Archaeological Institute and the Regional Museum Bourgas. The results of the underwater research in the waters around the Chryssosotira fortress are also presented. The book is scheduled to be presented in Burgas in June, and it has been uploaded to the NIM website for free access.

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