Post by UKarchaeology on Jan 29, 2016 17:40:45 GMT
An archaeological analysis of the pottery discovered recently in the Kovachevsko Kale Fortress near the town of Popovo in Northeast Bulgaria has revealed that the Roman city and its region were settled by a large number of Visigoths in the last quarter of the 4th century AD, shortly before the ultimate division of the Roman Empire into a Western and Eastern Roman Empire in 395 AD.
The scientific analysis of the huge amount of ceramic vessels and fragments found at the Kovachevsko Kale Fortress has been carried out as part of its archaeological excavations by archaeologists from Veliko Tarnovo University “St. Cyril and St. Methodius", and has been funded by Popovo Municipality, the municipal press service has announced in a release.
The recent excavations have led to the discovery of a huge Ancient Roman building from the 4th century AD which appears to have been a horreum (i.e. a granary).
The Late Roman fortress Kovachevsko Kale near Bulgaria’s Popovo was built in the 4th century AD to fortify the medium-sized Roman city existing there whose real name remains unknown against the barbarian invasions targeting the Roman province of Moesia Inferior (Lower Moesia, today’s Northern and Northeast Bulgaria) coming from the lands north of the Danube.
It now turns out that just several decades later, in the last quarter of the 4th century AD, the Roman city known today as the Kovachevsko Kale Fortress was overrun by the invading Visigoths, one of the two main branches of the Germanic peoples known collectively as the Goths, who displaced the local population and settled there en masse.
This conclusion is based on the discovery and examination of the so called polished gray pottery and gray-black pottery, which is known as being typical of the Eastern Germanic tribes, and the Goths in particular, the researching archaeologists have concluded.
The researchers have found that 87% of the fragments of a total of 33 different types of ceramic vessels found in the Kovachevsko Kale Fortress consist of gray and gray-black pottery.
Full story: archaeologyinbulgaria.com/2016/01/22/pottery-analysis-reveals-visigoths-settled-en-masse-in-northeast-bulgaria-shortly-before-roman-empires-division/