Articles about Matt Painted Ware from Bulgaria

Golden jewellery from a 2nd millennium BC tumulus grave at Ovchartsi, Radnevo district

by Stefan Alexandrov

(4 May 2009)

During the rescue excavations of a tumulus close to the village Ovchartsi, southeastern Bulgaria, a burial of ca. 65-year old woman with rich golden and bronze grave goods and a unique wheel-made vessel of unusual shape and painted decoration was discovered. The tumulus lies in the so-called Maritsa Iztok (Eastern Maritsa) region (Fig. 1). This region is one of the most intensively researched areas in Bulgaria, due to numerous archaeological rescue excavations, necessitated by the fact that whole stretches of landscape and archaeological monuments have been systematically destroyed since the 1960s by open charcoal mines.

The Phenomenon of Mattpainted Pottery in the Northern Aegean.
Introduction, Overview and Theories

by Barbara Horejs

(3 October 2007)

The term mattpainted pottery was first used by A. Furtwängler and G. Loeschke in their classification of pottery from Grave Circle A in Mycenae. It quickly gained wide use in research as the designation for a category of pottery with dull, lustreless, that is, ‘matt’ painting. In the course of time different chronological and technological appearances accumulated under this very flexible nomen. The spectrum ranges from the wheel-made and handmade polychrome ware of Middle Helladic southern Greece, to handmade pottery of the Late Bronze Age – with bichrome and monochrome ware in West Macedonia and monochrome ware in Central Macedonia – and the Iron Age phenomenon of mattpainted handmade pottery in Epirus and Albania.

Late Bronze Age Pottery from the Site of Vratitsa, Eastern Bulgaria. Definition, Chronology and its Aegean affinities.

by Rositsa Hristova

(9 March 2011)

The site is located along the route of the “Trakia” Highway and administratively belongs to the village of Vratitsa, municipality of Kameno. It is situated in the field called Aladinova Chesma (Aladin’s Fountain), 1.5 km northeast of the village. This is an area of low hills and the region is well watered. In geographical terms, this area is part of the Burgas Plain, which forms a region on its own within the Black Sea climatic sub-zone. The site occupies a gentle slope facing south-southwest and is situated at the western edge of the plain where the southern terrace of the Karnobat Hills starts.

Aegeo-Balkan Prehistory