Gluhite Kamani Research Project

Interdisciplinary Research of the Early Iron Age in Thrace
(BNSF КП-06-Н80/6 from 07.12.2023)

Early Iron Age (EIA) studies occupy a prominent place in both European and world scholarship as this was the period of transformation of pre-classical into classical communities. Bulgarian historiography has only sporadically dealt with the topic: there are no monographic studies or proper scholarly debate. For this reason, our lands are a blank spot on the map of Eastern Mediterranean and Europe for the late-2nd and the first half of the 1st millennium BC. Recent archaeological excavations of EIA sites in Thrace provided a significant data base for a more detailed study of the period.

From 2008 until 2022 the “Rock-cut Complex Gluhite Kamani” has regularly been excavated, for 15 seasons, and proved to be one of the major EIA sites in Thrace. The well-preserved cultural layers, structures and contexts allow it to become a site-eponym for the relative EIA chronological sequence in Southern Thrace which is so far missing. The site provides an excelent opportunity for building up an absolute radio-carbon chronology of the period.

The present project aims at processing the excavated material from the Gluhite Kamani site: the ceramic assemblage, the small finds, the osteo- and palaeobotanic remains, as well as to prepare them for publication in a volume, one of series about the site. We plan to apply interdisciplinary approach, archaeometric analyses, digital technology for documenting the material and GIS-based spatial analysis. An innovative data base will be developed for the statistical processing and analysis of the pottery assemblage. The latter will be integrated into a web platform which will provide an easy access and will popularize the research results. We believe that this will better communicate the scientific approaches to the wider audience and will improve the image of Bulgarian scholarship.