ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS NEAR BYALA (Valeri Yotov – valeri.yotov@gmail.com, Alexander Minchev) The excavations continued in sectors LXXIII and LXXIV. In Trench LXXIII-1, the extension of the earlier wall was discovered at c. 2 m beneath the walls of the Late Antique building. The earlier wall was built after the Thracian cult center that existed during the 6th century BC – beginning of the 1st century AD, but before the buildings of the 2nd – 3rd centuries AD. In Trenches LXXIII-10 and LXXIV-1-2/6-7, ten dolia were discovered to the southeast of the Late Antique street. A room, 6.60 m by 3.60 m in size, adjoining Building 22, was discovered in Trench LXXIII-10. Four dolia were discovered in the room. A drachma of Apollonia of the 5th century BC and a tetradrachms of Mesambria or Odessos of the 1st century BC were found beneath the floor of the room. Several destroyed clay escharai and six ritual pits (Nos. 88 – 93) of the Thracian cult center were explored in the earlier strata. The ritual pits contained a fragmentary kantharos, a fragmentary bowl, terracotta loom weights, terracotta spindle whorls, fragments from tegulae, Thracian sherds, part of an ichthye with a graffito that reads: AHT…., a bronze arrow-coin, and six bronze coins of Mesambria of the 2nd – 1st centuries and of Odessos of 90 – 72 BC.