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Proceedings of the International Conference, 29-30 October 2008 Sofia, Publishing House St. Ivan Rilski, Sofia, 253-257.
ANCIENT GOLD MINING AT THE SOUTHERN SLOPES OF THE VITOSHA AND VERILA
MOUNTAINS
Stoyan Avdev1, Christian Tsankov2
1Besike
2University
ABSTRACT. Gold and silver deposits at the Southern slopes of the Vitosha and Verila Mountains, as well as gold bearing placers at the upper
stream of the Struma River have been exploited since most ancient times, and especially intensively in certain historical periods. Traces of this
remarkable ancient gold production can be found today in the area of the villages Chuipetlovo, Bosnek, Gorna Dikanya, Dolna Dikanya, Lisets and
others. The volume of the washed gold-bearing sand and gravels along the rivers Struma, Klisura, Martinova and others is several millions m3.
Enormous are also the mines for gold production from the eluvial-delivial placers and from the in situ gold-silver ore occurrences. For example, the
ancient quarry below the Kupena Peak in the Smilio area is with remarkable dimensions of 550x50x10 m. Similar is the scale of ore production in
the area of the villages Gorna Dikanya and Dolna Dikanya. The existing data suggests that the main ore production took place during the Roman
domination on the Balkans and mostly during the -V century, as well as later during the Ottoman Period from the V to the V century.
Fig. 1. A big digging place at the area Kozarnitsite, near the village Gorna
Dikanya (Radomir District)
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c
Fig. 6. Silver argenteuses minted in Serdica by the emperors:
Maximilian Hercules (305-306); b Diocletian (303-305); c Maximin Daza
(305-306)
c
Fig. 5. Gold aureuses, minted in Serdica by the emperors: Maximin
(308-313); b Galeria Valeria (308); c Galerii Maximilian (305-306)
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Studena, Kralev Dol, Popovo and others. This fact has been
manifested in the list of the most important silver mines of the
Balkan Peninsula compiled by the Genovesian Giacopo de
Promontorio in 1475 (j, 1970, 93). According to his data,
despite the known mines Novo Burdo, Srebrenitsa, Kratovo,
Prishtina and Seres, big silver mine existed also near Sofia.
The precious metal production from this mine reached its
maximum during the VI century. For at least two centuries
significant amounts of both gold and silver from placer and in
situ deposits were produced. Giant remains have left from
these activities mining diggings into the gold, gold-silver and
gold-silver-polymetallic deposits, as well as huge stone piles
from the washed gold bearing placers (vdev, 1996, 21-24).
Unfortunately there are a few written records for these gold
and silver mines. Indirect information is found in a Turkish
ferman send in 1574 to the local governors (kadii) of the
mining centres in which they are ordered to send certain
quantities of lead in Thesaloniki (j, 1970, 92). The receiver
of such ferman is the kadia of Radomir, who had to send the
ore from the nearest local mine. From that time is another
document with a similar content. It has been addressed to the
kadia in Sofia and to his assistant nazur Hazur Chavush, and
a copy was send to the kadia of Samokov and to the nazur
in Samokov (Grozdanova, Andreev, 1986, 121). In it was
ordered the necessary quantity of lead for the building of a
mosque in Istanbul to be sent. The participation of the nazur
of Samokov for this order probably has been related to the
transportation, because the supplies of iron from Samokov for
Istanbul were frequent and made on a regular basis and an
organization existed in this respect.
References
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and Metallurgy in the Bulgarian Lands during the V-I
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Angelov, B. 1959. Archeological notes in Serbian itineraries
during the VII-VIII c. Archaeology, 8, 3, 57-59 (in
Bulgarian).
Avdev, S. 1996. The big gold-silver min at Vitosha during the
VI-VII c. Geology and Mineral Resources, 1, 21-24 (in
Bulgarian).
Avdev, S. 2005. History of Gold Production on the Bulgarian
Lands. Besike, Sofia, 360 p. (in Bulgarian)
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(in Bulgarian).
Grozdanova, . 1989. The Bulgarian Nation in the VII
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