THE HELLENISTIC TOMB WITH GREEK INSCRIPTION FROM SMYADOVO, BULGARIA – RECONSIDERED
THE HELLENISTIC TOMB WITH GREEK INSCRIPTION FROM SMYADOVO, BULGARIA – RECONSIDERED

Summary/Abstract: In 2000 on the right bank of the river Kamchiya, to the northeast of the modern town of Smyadovo, district of Shumen in Bulgaria, rescue archaeological researches were carried out in a mound affected by a treasure hunters’ intervention and a tomb was found, but its inventory was believed to have been plundered. This tomb bears a clearly readable inscription with incised Greek letters in two lines on its facade above its entrance, which, translated into English, is as follows: Gonimasedze, wife of Seuthes. In 2002 the authors of the primary publication of this tomb admitted the possibility that it had been built for an unknown Thracian woman, who was the wife of a certain Thracian aristocrat named Seuthes. This extremely important Hellenistic tomb from the lands of ancient Thrace is represented again and reconsidered here, being put in a broader historical context. The persons mentioned in the inscription are precisely identified as the Thracian ruler Seuthes III and his first wife. It was found, that the tomb with Greek inscription had been built later by the most powerful king of Thrace – Kavaros, to commemorate both the first wife of the Thracian ruler Seuthes III and especially also Seuthes III himself – for the two major battles against the mighty Hellenistic king of Thrace – Lysimachus, and those battles were mentioned by the ancient writer Diodorus. Now we can assume that those battles had taken place in the area of today’s Smyadovo, exactly at the northern end of today's Rish Pass, which is situated in the eastern part of the Balkan Mountains (Stara Planina).

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