Not far from the town of Lovech, between the villages of Doirentsi and Drenov, during the construction of the future route of the Hemus motorway, a seven-thousand-year-old pit sanctuary surrounded by a ritual ditch was discovered. Its exploration began two years ago with drilling and after some interruption, in May this year archaeologists resumed the excavations, which are led by prof. Vasil Nikolov and Assoc. Prof. Galina Samichkova, PhD, from the National Archaeological Institute and Museum of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. In front of the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) Prof. Nikolov said that the archaeological monument dates back to the Neolithic to Chalcolithic transition, which is more than 2,000 years before the beginning of the Egyptian civilization. 

This is one of the largest archaeological sites in this part of the highway, which is about 740 meters long and over 70 meters wide. The sanctuary itself, where 40 ritual pits have been uncovered, is about 196 meters wide. Its length, which remains in unexcavated ground, is thought to be even greater.

"This sanctuary, about 7,000 years old, is of the earliest farmers and cattle breeders in the Bulgarian lands - people who produced, settled in settlements with stable houses and already took very hard care of their crops related to specific rituals", said Acad. Vasil Nikolov. "For modern man it is difficult to understand the mentality of those people of 7,000 years ago, but for them  the production of more grain, the fertility of animals and in the family were of the utmost importance."

Compiled by Darina Grigorova (based on an interview of BTA)