EXPLORATIONS IN PHILIPPOPOLIS (Zheni Tankova – RAM.Plovdiv@gmail.com) The site was situated at the foot of the southern slopes of Trimontium and near the Roman forum, the stadium and the theater. The explorations were carried out to the southeast of the fortification wall dated after the middle of the 6th century AD. The excavated areas included insulae Nos. 4 and 5, part of decumanus No. 1, 13 m long, and cardo No. 2, 20 m long and 5.50 m wide, which made intersections with decumani Nos. 1 and 2. Decumani Nos. 1 and 2 and cardines Nos. 1 and 2 surrounded insula No. 4. Six rooms to the south of decumanus No. 1 and two rooms to the west of cardo No. 2 were explored. A ritual pit, 2.10 – 2.70 m in diameter and 50 cm in depth, containing Thracian sherds of the 8th – 6th centuries BC, was discovered under the wall between rooms Nos. 5 and 6. A second ritual pit, 2.20 m in diameter and 60 cm in depth, containing sherds from a Thasian amphora and a Thracian bowl of the 5th – 4th century BC, was explored under room No. 3. The earliest walls of the buildings dated to the second half of the 2nd century BC – 1st century AD. The rooms had foundations and plinths built of boulders bonded with mud, while the walls were constructed of wattle-and-daub. The second construction period dated to the 2nd – 3rd centuries AD. The walls, 60 – 65 cm wide, were constructed of ashlars and roughly cut stones bonded with mortar. A layer of charcoal, ash, burned mud bricks and sherds, which testified to fire and destruction, was documented. The next construction period dated to the end of the 3rd – first half of the 5th centuries AD. The buildings were reconstructed and the new walls were built of ashlars bonded with mortar. A room in the northwestern corner of Building D was explored. There were two semicircular pools and a drain inside the room. This one and three other rooms were the baths of the building. The building had floors paved with bricks, marble slabs and mosaics and walls decorated with plaster.