Histoire et Culture de la Thrace du Nord-Est
History and Culture of Northeastern Thrace

Summary/Abstract: A systematic analysis is made in the paper on the results of the research and analysis of the culture, social structure, political and state life, and the religion of the tribes living in Northeastern Thrace during the antiquity, with special attention focused on some fundamental aspects: the process of social differentiation during the fifth and the first half of the fourth millennium BC; the Varna Eneolithic necropolis; the evidence of the ancient authors on the customs and lifestyle of the indigenous population; the campaign of Darius I; the participation of Getae in the army of Sitalkes; the march of Alexander the Great; the rule of Dromichaites and later of Burebista; the Roman conquest; the policy of Decebalus; the Thracian religiousness known as Thracian Orphism connected with the cult of the anthropodaimon Zalmoxis; the treasure from Borovo and other archaeological monuments. The archaeological reality corresponds to the evidence of Homer, Herodotus, Strabo and others. The author rejects as speculative the hypothesis on the existence of the so-called “Thracian-Cymmerian” antiquity in the 8th–7th century BC, and he also rejects the view on the “zoomorphic” style in Thracian art as a simple borrowing from the Scythians or their influence, launching instead the more plausible idea of similarities in the art of the Thracians and of the other ethnic and cultural communities in Eurasia. The conclusion reached is that the lands of Northeastern Thrace were an area of dynamic contacts. The author concludes that Northeastern Thrace was one of the centres of historical and cultural synthesis in Southeastern Europe in the second and first millennium BC.

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