Underwater archaeological excavations in the area of Burgas Municipality in 2021

In 2021, the underwater archaeological excavations of the water area of ​​the Municipality of Burgas continued, starting in 2020 as a joint program of the Regional Historical Museum - Burgas (RHM-Burgas) and the Center for Underwater Archaeology (CPA) at the Ministry of Culture. For the second year, the research program was fully funded by the Municipality of Burgas, which made it possible to conduct two underwater archaeological expeditions of CPA - non-destructive complex study of Foros Bay and archaeological excavations of a glass vessel in Chengene Scaffolding Bay. Both studies were supervised by Dr. N. Prahov, Director of CPA.

As in 2020, the exploration of the glass deposit was a success. Dozens of fragments of exquisite glass vessels were found during diving searches and excavations. Some of them are of types that were not found during the study of the site in 2020. Although they are most likely on the seabed as a result of a shipwreck in the reef around which they were found, no remains of a sunken vessel have been identified so far. court. The find is a set of glass vessels of various shapes. To date, the research team has not found exact parallels from the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. The working hypothesis is that they are Venetian production from the 16th or 17th century and were transported by a merchant ship to the urban centers on the Western and Northern Black Sea coasts.

In addition to the collection of the Regional historical museum - Burgas, discovered during research in 2020 and 2021, part of the glass group find is owned by the National History Museum (NHM), where in the 90s of the 20th century a diver from Burgas handed over dozens of vessels. In 2021, RHM-Burgas, CPA and NHM plan to organize an exhibition in which selected exhibits from the glass vessels from the funds of the two museums will be presented. The holding of the exhibition and the publication of the catalogue to it are supported by the Ministry of Culture.

A comprehensive archaeological survey was conducted in Foros Bay, including a seabed scan with a bottom profile and side-scan sonar, and diving searches. The profilographer gave information about the ancient terrains when the bay was a coastal valley. The sonar registered several anomalies on the seabed, which are likely to be archaeological sites - ships or ship cargo. Diving searches, conducted in extremely low visibility, found that the bottom of the bay is covered with muddy sediments, which hide the archaeological materials in the bay. Local divers have reported that rich pottery has been found in the area of ​​the ancient fortress of Cape Foros after strong storms and sea currents removing bottom sediments. The high archaeological potential of Foros Bay gives the archaeological team a reason to plan future research there.

In 2021, the archaeological expedition to Cape Chiroza continued in its waters, led by Prof. Dr. Ivan Hristov from NHM. Studies there were carried out with the support of RHM-Burgas and funded by the Municipality of Burgas and gave very important information about the past of the region, as well as new exhibits for the fund of the Regional historical museum - Burgas.

Thus, in 2021 in the waters of the Municipality of Burgas were conducted 3 underwater archaeological excavations, organized by RHM - Burgas and conducted by teams of NHM-Sofia and CPA - Sozopol.

At the moment, due to the difficult working conditions - very low visibility and a serious amount of algae, the work of the diving teams is temporarily suspended. It is planned to continue their work during the autumn season.

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