Paramun
Photo Filipov Ivo · CC BY-SA 4.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
Paramun (Парамунска чука) is a sanctuary about 0.5 km north-west of the village of Paramun, on the rocky peak of the north-western Paramun section of the Strazha mountain, Bulgaria. A broad wall of unworked stone encloses the rock massif and an area of about 700 – 800 m².
The structure is attributed to the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Hallstatt period, and is probably connected with a cult of the sun and the rock rather than with defence.
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Article
Paramun
The rock massif of the highest part of Paramunska chuka, together with the adjoining ground to the west, is enclosed by a broad wall that survives as a bank overgrown with shrubs.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Bulgarian): Парамунска чукаCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Bulgarian): Парамунска чукаCC BY-SA 4.0
The rock massif of the highest part of Paramunska chuka, together with the adjoining ground to the west, is enclosed by a broad wall that survives as a bank overgrown with shrubs. The wall is built of unworked stone without mortar and encloses an area of elliptical plan measuring about 700 – 800 m². The eastern part of the enclosed area is considerably higher; a building probably stood there and was later destroyed.
No archaeological material is found on the ground today. In the past local residents reported finding coarse, grey-black, thick-walled pottery and coins.
DatingSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Bulgarian): Парамунска чукаCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Bulgarian): Парамунска чукаCC BY-SA 4.0
The small size of the enclosure, the building technique, the rock massif included in it and its location lead to the structure being assigned to the prehistoric period, the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Hallstatt period. Professor Dimitrina Mitova-Dzhonova connects it rather with religion, and specifically with a cult of the sun and of the rock, than with military defence. A later ethnographic votive site (Sveti Krast) may be a distant echo of the ancient pagan sanctuary.
SettingSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Bulgarian): Парамунска чукаCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Bulgarian): Парамунска чукаCC BY-SA 4.0
About 1.5 km north-west of the present village, on the highest peak of the north-western Paramun section of the Strazha mountain, lie the ruins of a prehistoric fortress called Gradishte. Its broad wall of unworked stone without mortar encloses the rock massif of the peak and the adjoining terrain to the west. The wall is ruined and survives as a bank covered in shrubs. The enclosed ground slopes to the north-west. A cracked rock massif rises in its south-eastern part, and the wall widens noticeably in the south-western part, perhaps where there were towers guarding the pass of the fortress. Much of the ground is now grassed over, and only single small, worn fragments of thick-walled prehistoric pottery, grey-black in colour and tempered with sand and clay, are found. The place name Gradishte indicates that the enclosing wall was until recently comparatively well preserved.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Bulgarian): Парамунска чукаCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Bulgarian): Парамунска чукаCC BY-SA 4.0
The religion of the earliest inhabitants of the Pernik area in the prehistoric periods (Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age) is still insufficiently studied. Scientific expeditions of the 1970s led by Professor Dimitrina Mitova-Dzhonova discovered artefacts and sites of great importance for the culture of the first inhabitants of the region. The earliest monuments directly linked with religion and sacred rites are the rock cult insignia near the villages of Berainci, Dolna Sekirna, Dolna Melna, Garlo and Dolni Romantsi and near the town of Breznik (locality Churyak, Breznishko bardo).
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Thracian rock sanctuaries of Bulgaria
In the Eastern Rhodope and Strandzha mountains of Bulgaria, rocks have been cut, carved and used as sanctuaries for thousands of years, and the Atlas lists many of them as "megaliths". The Thracians were an Indo-European-speaking people who inhabited large parts of south-eastern Europe in ancient times, including modern Bulgaria, Romania, North Macedonia, northern Greece and European Turkey, and they reused many of the sites. Strandzha has a large concentration of ruins of Thracian sanctuaries, sacrificial altars and dolmens.
Perperikon, in the Eastern Rhodope Mountains 15 kilometres north-east of Kardzhali, is an ancient Thracian city on a rocky hill 470 metres high, thought to have been a sacred place; it is described as the largest megalith ensemble site in the Balkans. In the Middle Ages it served as a fortress. Beglik Tash, a prehistoric rock sanctuary on the southern Black Sea coast north of Primorsko, was reused by Thracian tribes in the Iron Age.
Many of the places listed as megaliths here are natural rock formations. Beglik Tash is a natural rock formation of megaliths of hardened magma, from a volcano of the Mesozoic era; most of the megaliths have traces of carving for Thracian rituals, and there are the remains of a labyrinth and a "Thracian sun-clock" formed of huge stones, as well as a 150-ton rock. It is often hard to tell where nature ends and human work begins.
Dating depends on the finds in the few excavated parts, and most sites are listed with a broad range.
When visiting, look for traces of carving on the rock, and for steps and niches.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Thracians, Wikipedia: Perperikon, Wikipedia: Beglik Tash, Wikipedia: Strandzha · CC BY-SA 4.0
Photographs
1 photograph, each with its author and licence
Where it stands
Bulgaria
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 42°47′42″ N, 22°44′36″ EFor a GPS or map app: 42.79500, 22.74333
Access is as our sources describe it; we have not visited the site to check.
Nearby
The closest sites in the Atlas, by straight line.
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
1 source behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q20500004wikidata.org
Image files
- Solar shrine Paramun BG.jpgFilipov IvoCC BY-SA 4.0
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Парамунска чука" (Bulgarian), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; authors are listed in the page history. Reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikipedia · Edit history and authors
- Wikipedia (Bulgarian): Парамунска чукаCC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q20500004CC0