EXPLORATIONS NEAR BANSKO (Katya Melamed – katjamelamed@yahoo.com) The explorations were carried out in 1990 – 1997 and were completed during the resumed archaeological excavations. A Thracian settlement was documented and Thracian pottery was found. A basilica was built around the middle of the 4th century AD. Its walls were constructed of stones bonded with clay and were 80 – 90 cm wide, preserved up to 1.10 m in height. The basilica was 19 m long and 4.40 m wide and had a nave with an apse. There was a chapel with an apse, 8.80 m by 5 m in size, from the northern side of the basilica. There was a pavement of stone slabs in the middle of the nave and a staircase leading to the lower part of the nave situated in front of the altar. The finds included tegulae, glass fragments from windows (some of them colored in red or decorated with red circle and a bud), fragments from glass cups and probably from icon lamps, and pottery. Most probably the local Christian community was included in the episcopate of Nicopolis ad Nestum. The basilica was burned at the end of the 6th century AD during the invasions of the Slavs. Subsequently, houses were built on the site and the stones from the basilica were reused as building material. The finds included charcoal, pieces of burned timber, iron nails, clamps, wedges, latches, Early Slavic pottery of the end of the 6th – beginning of the 7th centuries AD and agricultural tools. The village was burned at the end of the 10th century. Subsequently, a church, 5.60 m by 2.90 m in size, was built over the remains of the altar of the basilica. The walls of the church were built of roughly cut stones bonded with mortar and were 70 cm wide, preserved up to 1.50 m in height. There was a Christian necropolis situated around the church and 150 graves from the end of the 10th to the 13th centuries were explored. The grave goods included coins, including a coin of the Bulgarian King Ivan Asen II (1218 – 1241) minted in Thessaloniki after 1230, bronze earrings, finger-rings, bracelets, buttons, belt buckles and iron knives. The ritual of “Charon’s obol” was attested. Ceramic vessels were discovered in two graves.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS NEAR BANSKO (Katya Melamed – katjamelamed@yahoo.com) According to the results from the archaeological excavations carried out during the 1980s, a pottery workshop existed in the northern chapel of the basilica during the Early Middle Ages. There is a marsh to the east of the basilica and a large rectangular building there is visible on satellite images. The explorations to the south of the basilica continued. Parts from walls of buildings, constructed of uneven stones bonded with mud and clay, were discovered. The finds included fragments from roof-tiles and window glass, fragmentary glass vessels, and sherds from the Early Byzantine period and the Middle Ages until the 12th century.