An outbuilding, without analogue, from the Hamandjia culture – the first civilization in Europe, was discovered during archeological excavations of the settlement mound Big Island near Durankulak, said Ivan Vaisov – from NAIM to BAS, who was the head of the excavations.

“This year is 26 years since the excavations of the settlement mound Big Island near Durankulak. During this time we discovered two large buildings of the Hamandjia culture, this is 6800 years from now and we have always wondered where the outbuildings of these large buildings are. This year we were lucky to find such an outbuilding “, explained Ivan Vaisov, who is the son of Prof. Henrietta Todorova and in the period 1977-2004 participated in the research of the settlement mound with the necropolis” Big Island “near the village of Durankulak.

The newly opened building has an area of ​​about 50 square meters. Inside, a clay grain storage facility was found, in which completely preserved vessels were found.

“In this room we found the oven for baking bread, as well as the chromel facility for grinding wheat. This room burned down and during the fire people tried to remove the most valuable of it, saving the wheat, of course, removing the chromel stones, which are extremely valuable, they failed to remove everything. The entire floor of the room was covered with burnt wheat seeds, including in a hurry someone dropped the necklace, which is made of bone beads. This year we discovered a unique tool, a very sharp awl, which was used for tattooing. Next to this awl we found a stone on which there were traces of faded red ocher “, said Ivan Vaisov.

According to him, the construction of this facility for storing grain, which had a roof, which during the burning and falling fell from a lower height, so these vessels were not broken.

This year the municipality of Shabla started the implementation of a project called “Hamandjia – the oldest civilization in Europe”. Under this project, it is envisaged that this facility will be exhibited on site, as an exhibition module, which will bring additional weight as an exhibition, as an outdoor exhibition of this most ancient architecture in Europe.

“This object has no analogue so far. Not that there are no such sites, but they have not been found in the area of ​​the Hamandjia culture. This site has absolutely no analogue, this earliest stone architecture, outside of mainland Greece, of course, so far has no analogue, “said Ivan Vaisov.

He explained that the settlement was inhabited by Indo-Europeans. The largest prehistoric necropolis has been studied near Durankulak – about 1,200 graves have been published. These are tall, strong men, Indo-Europeans, who practically inhabited Dobrogea at that time. The first stone buildings, which are huge – one is about 150 square meters, the other – 170 square meters, were practically not buildings for the population, but were representative buildings, probably lived people who ruled the life of the Hamandjia culture, Unlike the later settlement, which is a culture of Varna, when it was a settlement, we have somewhere around 12 houses, when people lived in the buildings and kept their pets.

The settlement of the Hamandjia culture itself has existed for about 6,500 years since then, after which it died as a result of an earthquake. “This earliest settlement has an interruption, a certain period of time and later the buildings of culture Varna are built. The culture of Varna itself, the settlement was finally interrupted in the fourth millennium BC – something that happens to other settlements in the region, “said Ivan Vaisov.

Hamandjia-Durankulak culture or just Hamandjia is an archeological culture of settled agricultural tribes from the late Neolithic era. The most ancient phase is Blatnitsa (Durankulak) found in the research of Durankulak Lake. Its creator was the first culturally settled agricultural population in Europe, built the first stone structures on the continent and created the world’s first objects of technologically processed, non-native gold, a small number of which were found in the area of ​​Durankulak.

The culture was widespread in 5500 – 4500 years BC. in the northern and southeastern Bulgarian lands, from present-day southeastern Romania and south of the Balkans. It is named after the old, purely Bulgarian until 1940, village of Hamandjia near Babadag, Tulcea region.