Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak
UNESCO-listed Hellenistic burial chamber with painted frescoes, shown to visitors through a full-size replica.
The tomb was found by chance in April 1944, when soldiers digging a shelter on the Tyulbeto hill broke into a brick-built chamber. It belongs to a necropolis serving Seuthopolis, the nearby capital of the Odrysian kingdom, and dates from the late fourth century BC. A narrow corridor leads to a round chamber roughly two and a half metres across, covered by a beehive dome and buried under an earth mound, and it is thought to have held a Thracian ruler and his consort.
The domed chamber and the corridor are painted in tempera. The main frieze shows a seated couple at a funeral feast, attended by servants, musicians and horses, with a chariot race running around the top of the dome; the work is among the best preserved examples of Hellenistic painting. The tomb was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1979. Because humidity and visitors threaten the pigments, the original is sealed and a precise copy built alongside is open instead.
Highlights
- Beehive-domed chamber of the late fourth century BC
- Funeral-feast frieze and chariot race painted in tempera
- Part of the necropolis of the Odrysian capital Seuthopolis
- UNESCO World Heritage site since 1979, seen through a replica
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