We found out about the “temple-well” near Gurlo village near Pernik from mountain guide Stanoy Arabadjiev who has been endeavouring to spark interest in Bulgarian antiquities. To enter, we had to clear the thicket that was hiding it from view. The well is said to be a temple to the Sumerian god Enki.

It was discovered in 1971 by archaeologist Dimitrina Mitova-Jonova who dated it to the 14th-13th century BC. She connects its construction with the ancient building tradition of the Nuragic culture on the island of Sardinia, where dozens of similar structures have been discovered. The temple has no parallel in Bulgaria. It was restored in 1972 in preparation of being included in the UNESCO cultural heritage list, but was then forgotten. There is one more such structure found outside Sardinia – in Crimea. The temple near Gurlo is sunk 15 meters into the steep rocky side of Zavalska Mountain. A stairwell leads down to an underground temple with a well and there is an opening in the ceiling. More about the well from one of the people who have studied it, Ass. Prof. Lyubomir Tsonev:

“What makes our temple-well interesting is that it is very different from the traditional Thracian underhill temples which are from a much later period anyway – 6th-4th century BC. They are made of ashlars chiseled with great precision and are much more modern. The individual stones are cramped together using iron and then coated with lead to prevent rusting. Some Thracian tombs have frescoes. The temple-well at Gurlo is much more primitive. It was built using cut stone blocks with little processing, what is known as the dry-stone technique.”

The entrance to the temple is V-shaped, and as Prof. Tsonev explains, is in the spirit of Thracian tradition whose purpose is to withstand the weight of the rocks on top of it. What is the theory Dimitrina Mitova-Jonova had about finding such a structure on Bulgarian territory? Ass. Prof. Lyubomir Tsonev:

“Jonova says that this kind of architecture has its roots in Mesopotamia. Fifteen centuries before Christ there was a sufficiently well-structured religious system in place as well as a comparatively advanced bronze production; bronze was at the time expensive. And as the properties of bronze are improved by adding other metals, producers were on the lookout for non-ferrous metal deposits that would make bronze easier to process. A group of people migrated from Mesopotamia in search of such deposits, Jonova says. After spending some time in the region of Lebanon, Syria and Israel, the group probably circled the Black Sea from the North and built the structure in Crimea or crossed the Bosphorous to end up in the Balkans. Perhaps the migrants discovered non-ferrous metals there, though they must have been scanty. Having spent some time here, they built the temple-well and then continued west to reach Sardinia which they found to be exceedingly rich in all kinds of non-ferrous metals. So, they settled there.”

What purpose did the temple-well serve? Some say that it served as a solar calendar. Ass. Prof. Lyubomir Tsonev has a different theory:

“I don’t think it is some kind of high-precision observatory because in those times there was no advanced society in these parts that would have any need of a precise calendar. People took their bearings from natural features. I think that it was a marker of the shortest day. We have a steep sloped hill - Jonova counted 9 springs gushing from it. If people in those days wanted water, they would have chosen the lowest spot where it is almost at surface level. Yet they chose to dig the deepest well into solid rock. In summer the entire slope is exposed to the sunlight but in winter – the sun only reaches its upper slopes. I think that what they were looking for was that precise spot on the incline that is sunlit in winter while at the same time there is water. The stairwell leading down to the vault is oriented to the south. That is why my second theory is that they were looking for the winter sun’s zenith. And thirdly, if the builders had wanted to obtain a combination of noon winter sun and water with astronomical precision, the corridor should have been pointing dead south at an azimuth of 180 °. But the corridor is shifted slightly to the east – the azimuth is 170 °. When I reconstructed the horizon with the outline of the hills in this area, it turned out that had the well had its corridor pointing dead south, the sun would be hidden behind the hill and its rays would not penetrate. That is why the builders had the corridor running slightly to the east which means the sun can reach down into the vault at almost noon sharp. It seems it was important for people in those times to combine the sun on the shortest day of the year with water. According to religions back then, water, sun, air and the earth, into which the temple is hewn, are the four elements of life. One more thing – after the shortest day, the days begin to grow. In the religions of olden times this was seen as life-giving. On 22 or 25 December there were probably high priests waiting inside the well for the moment when the sun’s rays penetrated inside at midday, saying prayers about the bond between sunlight and water.”

English version: Milena Daynova