Complex archaeological survey of Nesebar aquatory

Abstract

In 2019 the Center for Underwater Archaeology, supported by the Ministry of Culture and Balkan Heritage Foundation, continued the archaeological survey of submerged Mesambria. In the aquatory westwards of the South Jetty an excavation trench (fig. 2) was made next to a 15 m long fragment of an Early Byzantine wall, made of irregular stones and mortar (fig. 1). The trench was about 4 m2 and reached a depth of 2.6 m. The wall is founded in a dense clay stratum which was reinforced with wooden tapered piles. Twelve of them, parallel to each other, have been discovered (fig. 2, mark 1). Eastwards of the South Jetty the rectangular tower (8 x 8 m) and the fortification walls eastwards and westwards
of it, all made of big blocks, were cleaned of seaweeds and sand and recorded (fig. 3, 4). The preserved architectural complex is about 65 m long. The depth of the structures’ foundations is about 3 m (in the western and central part) and 1 m (in the eastern part) (fig. 2; Preshlenov 2012, 511).
A trench 1 x 8 m was excavated along the southwest façade of the wall, built with big blocks, at 4,5 m depth. The wall lays on a slightly tilted bedrock at the base of a steep slope under a terrace at 2 m. It is preserved in two rows. The first is made of stones with irregular shape. In gaps between them, five wooden crossbeams were found (fig. 5). The cross-section of the best preserved one is 20 x 20 cm. The second row is made of big, mostly rectangular blocks. At 4.4 m depth numerous fragmented Corinthian-style tegulae were discovered. North of the peninsula, westwards of the North Jetty, the excavations of the Byzantine fortification wall in opus mixtum continued (fig. 3).

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ORCID for Pavel, Yordanov Georgiev: orcid.org/0000-0003-2744-2055

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