Thracian tomb, Pomorie

Worth a detour

The Hollow Mound, as Pomorie calls it, is a Roman-period family mausoleum built entirely of brick inside an earth barrow: a long vaulted corridor opening into a round chamber, with a hollow column in the middle that spreads at the top like a mushroom and merges into the vault. The design has no parallel. It takes half an hour and costs about €2.50, and it is a kilometre and a half outside town.

Story

Background

The structure is a heroon — a mausoleum built for the cult of the dead of a noble family — and it served the western necropolis of ancient Anchialos. Two vestibules lead to a dromos, a vaulted corridor some twenty-two metres long, which opens into a circular chamber a little under twelve metres across. Roman building technique in Thracian tradition, and the largest brick tomb found in Bulgaria.

The column is the point. Instead of a solid support, the centre of the chamber is a hollow cylinder, and instead of a capital it widens upward and runs into the round wall of the vault, so that the whole roof is carried on one flaring stem with a stair inside it leading to the top of the mound. Five niches are set symmetrically in the wall. Traces of mortar rendering with dark green paint survive in the eastern part of the vault, which means the chamber was plastered and painted.

Marks worn into the entrance step show a double-leaved door opened many times, so this was a place people came back to rather than a sealed burial. The museum dates it to the second to fourth century AD, though you will see earlier dates in print. It stands northwest of the Pomorie–Burgas road under its mound; a three-hundred-metre asphalt spur leads to a small car park at the entrance. In winter you must telephone the Pomorie museum two or three days ahead.