A Neolithic pit sanctuary near the town of Lyubimets, southeast Bulgaria has been barbarously destroyed
The central part of the earliest and the only Neolithic pit sanctuary in southeast Europe, recently identified near the town of Lyubimets, southeast Bulgaria, was barbarously destroyed by the heavy machine equipment of Road Constructions – Plovdiv; the act being silently supported by the investor’s control “Patinvest Engineering” – Sofia, hired by Republican Road Infrastructure Fund (Road Executive Agency until recently) as executors of the Maritsa Highway Project!
The rescue excavations at Dana Bunar 2 Neolithic pit sanctuary near the town of Lyubimets were made in the summer of 2006 by a team directed by Prof. Vassil Nikolov, Director of the Institute of Archaeology and Museum – BAS. Instead of completing their obligations (according the documents signed up by them) to build a concrete supportive wall, the road constructors let the heavy machines enter the site area and completely destroyed a cultural layer of the sanctuary, 1.40 m average thickness, on an area of about 100 square meters! The Minister of Culture Prof. Stephan Danailov immediately alarmed the Minister of Regional Development and the General Public Prosecutor of the Republic of Bulgaria and asked for an urgent investigation on the case. An Interagency Committee was constituted by the Minister of Culture, which had to find out at the spot the damages done on the archaeological site dated to the second half of the 5th millennium BC. The Director of the IAM – BAS Prof. Vassil Nikolov sent a letter to the General Public Prosecutor of the Republic of Bulgaria Assoc. Prof. Boris Velchev, in which he writes that this time amenability has to be indicted for this barbarous act, done under the umbrella of a state institution. Haskovo Regional Prosecutor investigates the case and the results are awaited any moment. Formal notice was sent to the international organizations, United Nations’ structures, Council of Europe and the European Union.