Underwater settlement found at Bulgaria's Akin Cape

Archaeologists with the team of Associate Professor Dr Ivan Hristov, Deputy Director of the National Museum of History, discovered an underwater residential quarter during the excavations at Cape Akin close to the coastal town of Chernomorets. Bozhidar Dimitrov, Director of the National Museum of History, announced the news exclusively for FOCUS News Agency. 

Aerial view of Akin Cape [Credit: © Evgeni Dinev/PhotoShelter]

“During the excavations under the Via Pontica government programme at Cape Akin, one of the three capes of the town of Chernomorets, apart from the massive fortified wall with two battle towers at the peninsula itself, archaeologist Dr Ivan Hristov also discovered a continuation of the fortified wall into the sea. The continuation of the wall surrounds a big shoal Southwest of the cape. The fortified wall is preserved to some big height and the team has seen the outlines of a big battle tower of five meters height and three and a half meters width,” Bozhidar Dimitrov explained. 

In his words, the archaeologists have already ascertained that this is the early Byzantine fortress Krimna, which was situated there. Due to some circumstances, since the beginning of the WWI until a couple of years ago the fortress was within the area of a military unit and it was impossible for the archaeologists to study it. 

“The part of the fortress on dry land covers nearly 40 decares. The fortified wall is bigger even than the one in Sozopol – of around 2.6 metres width. The coins found by the archaeologists prove that the wall was built by Anastasius I in around 513, then reinforced by Justinian I over the next decades and probably the settlement was destroyed during the big Avarian invasion in 583-586,” Dimitrov said further. 

According to Bozhidar Dimitrov, the discovery of an underwater residential quarter is not a surprise. 

“The discovery of this underwater quarter in one of the coastal towns is so far the sole quarter discovered along the Black Sea coast and it may turn into a wonderful site for cultural and historical tourism under the Via Pontica programme,” Dimitrov remarked. 

Source: Focus News Agency [June 30, 2012]