Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak

Worth a detour

The frescoed frieze of a funeral feast — a couple holding hands as they part — is among the finest surviving Hellenistic painting anywhere. You see it in an exact replica; the original next door has been sealed so that it survives at all. Ten minutes covers the visit, so pair it with Golyama Kosmatka up the road, where the tomb you enter is the real one.

Story

Background

Soldiers digging an air-raid shelter on the edge of Kazanlak broke into it on 19 April 1944. What they had found was a brick tomb from the end of the fourth century BC: a corridor, a small rectangular antechamber, and a round chamber under a beehive dome barely two and a half metres across and three and a quarter high.

The painting runs round that dome in two bands. The lower one is the reason the tomb is famous — a funeral feast, with a Thracian nobleman in a gold wreath seated on a low couch and his wife on a high chair beside him, their hands joined. Servants bring a tray; a boy carries a cup and jug; two women play; grooms lead saddled horses away. Above it, on a narrower band, chariots race. Four colours do all of it: black, red, yellow and white, laid on wet plaster and finished in tempera. The antechamber has battle scenes instead.

You will not see any of this in the original. That building is locked and climate-controlled a few metres away, and UNESCO's own assessment endorses keeping it that way, pointing visitors to the copy instead. The replica is exact and the visit takes about ten minutes, which is a thin outing on its own — pair it with Golyama Kosmatka a short drive west, where the tomb you walk into is the real one.