EXPLORATIONS OF TUMULI NEAR THE VILLAGE OF STRAZHA (Damyan Damyanov – dam_sm@mail.bg) Two burial mounds, part of necropolis consisting of 13 tumuli, were excavated. The necropolis is located alongside a Trans-Rhodopean road that was also used during the Roman period and connected the Thracian Plain with the North Aegean coast. Tumulus No. 1 is 10–11 m in diameter and 1 m in height. A destroyed inhumation grave was found in its northwestern sector. The bronze fibula and the pottery discovered in the grave allow dating it to the 6th century BC. The lower parts of five millstones were found within the embankment. Most likely, the people who participated in the funerary ritual brought the millstones from their homes. This is an interesting and unusual feature of the mortuary practices of the Thracians who inhabited the Rhodope at the end of the Early Iron Age. A circle of uneven stones, 1.20 m in diameter, was discovered in the center of the tumulus. Several ceramic vessels were broken within the circle. A small kantharos, dated between the early 16th and the middle of the 15th centuries BC, was restored from the sherds. Part of an arrow-head shaped pendant, cut of a bronze plate, was found within the circle. Most likely, the tumulus was e cenotaph created at the very beginning of the Late Bronze Age and later re-used during the 6th century BC. Tumulus No. 2 is 10 m in diameter and 1 m in height. There is a clandestine excavation in its center. The burial was an inhumation. Fragments of one bronze and two iron fibulae and the point of a single-blade sword were found within the embankment. The fibulae allow the burial to be dated to the 8th – 7th centuries BC.