The Thracians
Maria Gimbutas argued that the original peaceful inhabitants of Neolithic Europe were conquered, and their villages destroyed by Indo-European horse riders who came from the Eurasia steppes starting from the 3rd millennium BC, “History shows us that between 8-10 million women had to die for her (Goddess)”.
In her Kurgan hypothesis (“Kurgan” – a mound of dirt over a grave in Turkish), she claims that tribes of men-warriors-nomads arrived in four main waves of conquest, destroyed the ancient settlements and established their own settlements characterized by artificial burial mounds. Most of the languages spoken in the world today were derived from the languages of the conquerors. According to linguistic evidence, the origin of the Indo-Europeans is the Russian steppes. The first presentation of her hypothesis was in 1956. Today there is a verification of her theories by a genetics researcher Luca Luigi Cavalli Sforza from Stanford university.
In Greece, it was the Ionians and the Dorians who destroyed the ancient Minoan and Mycenaean kingdoms and established archaic and classical Greece. They arrived in two waves, one about 4,000 years ago and the other about 3,000 years ago. Before them, the female deity ruled – Gaia, the Goddess of the earth, and after them, Zeus and the Olympian Gods came to power.
In the Balkans, there were three additional Indo-European invading peoples that are mostly unknown: in the southeast it was the Thracians that invaded and settled, and they appear on the stage of history as early as the Trojan War. Today it is increasingly becoming clear that they had a deep spirituality and advanced material culture.
In the western Balkans on the shores of the Adriatic Sea, it was the Illyrians tribes that invaded and settled. They built Fortresses, traded in the Adriatic Sea and competed with the Romans for hegemony in the Adriatic.
In central south Balkan, north of Greece, it was the Macedonians who invaded and settled the fertile plains, later they adopted Greek culture and became the strongest power in the world. In addition to this, there was a large invasion and settlement of Celts in the central northern Balkans, mainly in the areas of Serbia today. Some elements of the ancient Goddess culture were preserved by the new people, who brought with them a different religion and spiritualiy.
Indo-European Spirituality
The spirituality of the Indo-Europeans had several characteristic features. First, history was seen as circular, based on cycles—just like the cycles of life and death. Time was not perceived as linear, progressing from creation to redemption, as in the spirituality of the Semitic peoples, but as cyclic. In addition, the Indo-Europeans believed in an ancient struggle between good and evil. They viewed this world as an illusion—a screen—believing that other worlds beyond the material one are the true reality.
Indo-European culture was to some extent a culture of magic, but unlike Egyptian magic it was closer to nature. They brought with them new religious concepts to the Balkans, Spirituality based on a male sky God, a cyclical concept of life and an aspiration for eternal life. The Indo-European excelled in the use of iron and domestication of horses, they had superb war skills, tribal organization, new mythologies and language. They were organized according to hierarchical social classes and brought with them advanced mental and religious concepts, a spirit of initiative and action, a drive for fulfillment and self-improvement.
According to Professor Salman, the source of the spirituality of the Indo-European peoples was the northern School of Atlantis that found a home in Central Asia in the area of the Trim basin, starting from the 8th millennium BC. From there spiritual teachers were sent to establish study centers and encourage the creation of new communities all over the world. These developed into the nomadic people, farmers, builders of Megaliths. Together with the worshipers of the Goddess, the population of Europe was fused and created. The spiritual teachers established spiritual Schools and centers of prophecy throughout Europe. This was the network of knowledge dissemination that influenced the development of human culture; and so, when the last waves of emigrants came to the Balkans and Europe, the nations of Europe were formed, such as the Slavs, Celts, Thracians and Baltic peoples, they were influenced by these centers of learning and initiation.
One of the spiritual centers of the Slavs was in Kiev, where the enlightened Scythians kept the wisdom of Atlantis. They called it “Mysteries of the Hyperboreans”. The Hyperboreans were mythological people who lived beyond the source of the North Wind. The Greeks thought that the areas north of Thrace were the land of Hyperborea. Later, Scythianus became the teacher of the Scythian cavalry tribes that ruled the plains of Eurasia in the 8th to 2nd centuries BC. According to Salman’s version, the spiritual center of the Thracian tribes was on the island of Samothrace in the northern Aegean Sea.
The Thracians
According to the currently accepted theories (although some dispute it) the Thracian tribes arrived in the Balkans during the great migrations of the Indo-European people 3,000-4,000 years ago, and settled in the areas that are now Bulgaria, northeastern Greece and the European part of Turkey. In the regions of Romania and northern Bulgaria, Getae tribes, close to the Thracians, settled. In the past, these tribes were considered barbarians, and this is how the Greeks saw them, but archaeological findings discovered in recent years show that they had an advanced material civilization, developed religion and deep spirituality. The Thracian kingdoms reached a historical peak in the 4th-5th centuries BC and influenced Greek civilization, contributing to the creation of the Orphic mystery school.
The Thracians are named after Thrax, the son of Ares the God of war that lived in Thrace. They flourished at the same time as the Mycenaean civilization in the Peloponnese, the Minoan civilization in Crete, Troy and other Anatolian civilizations in the 2nd millennium BC. In classical period (4th-6th centuries BC) the Thracians constitute an independent and powerful entity that exists at the same time as Athens and Sparta and adopts some elements of Greek culture. Until recently it was thought that the Thracians did not have writing, but excavations show that they had alphabet that has not yet been deciphered (a long inscription in large and clear letters was discovered at a sacred rock site in the Rhodope Mountains called Sitovo Inscription).
The Greek writers describe the religion of the Thracians, and this is what emerges from the descriptions: the Thracians despised death, used to mourn the birth of a baby and buried the dead with joy, hence the amazing courage they showed in battle. They had a religious value for death, they were people poor in material wealth, but rich in spirit, immortality was achieved while alive through a ritual of initiation.
The Thracians were known for their excessive drinking ability, and all the treasures found in the Thracian tombs are mostly wine goblets. As such the traditions of Dionysus found a home in Thrace and some say they originated in the forests of Thrace. According to Herodotus, the Thracians worshiped Dionysus, Artemis, and Ares, but the king believed he was the son of Hermes.
The Thracian earth Goddess had a son who was associated with the sun and vegetation, in all of his manifestations he used to die every year and get reborn. Later he was associated with Dionysus, or with a God named Sabazios, and the center of his worship was in Perperikon in the Rhodope Mountains. The remains of his cult worship exist to this day in the Folklore traditions of Bulgaria, and especially in the Anastenari walking on fire ceremonies and the Kukeri mask tradition.
The Thracians adopted the holy places dedicated by the Goddess culture people in the Mountains and cultivated them. This were the megaliths, some with sun gate or a cave womb where they were reborn during their annual celebrations; the sacred sites were connected to the forces of the sun and the moon and the energies of the earth. Eliade argues that the Thracians had a myth of sacred marriage between the God of the storm and the sky and mother earth, which is corroborated by the traditions of the sacred center in Samothrace.
Thracian society was ruled by an aristocracy of priest-kings who were somewhat like the Celtic Druids, deeply involved in religion and mysticism and seeking eternal life. The prophet and teacher of the Thracians was Orpheus, the legendary musician from Greek mythology.
Thracian kingdoms
As mentioned earlier, Indo-European people arrived in the Balkans, probably already in the 3rd millennium BC, and mixed with the local population, thus creating the early “proto-Thracian” tribes and kingdoms. We don’t know much about this period.
In the 2nd millennium BC, the Mycenaean civilization develops in Greece, the Minoan in Crete, and the Thracians appear on the stage of history as allies of the City of Troy. The new Greek tribes (the Dorians) go to war with the existing forces, as reflected in the stories about the Trojan War, which was actually a civil war .The Thracians supported the Trojan side, indicating that they were part of the ancient golden order of the Bronze Age, which lost its hegemony to the Greek warriors of the Iron Age.
The Trojan War dates back to the 12th–13th century BC. The Iliad and The Odyssey mention various Thracian tribes, such as the Kikones and the Paiones, who fought against the Greek heroes and were praised for their courage. At that time, the Thracians had legendary leaders, including Rhesus—the king who was murdered in his sleep by Odysseus but was destined to be resurrected. Other notable Thracians include Eumolpos, one of the six kings of Eleusis and a founder of the Greek mystery tradition (possibly bringing it from Thrace); and Diomedes of Thrace, to whom Hercules was sent to perform his eighth labor, as Diomedes possessed man-eating horses.
In other words, Greek mythology is full of stories about legendary Thracian kings, the most famous of which is undoubtedly Orpheus. Presumably the legends were based on the existence of some type of loose Thracian kingdoms (tribal confederations) that stretched from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and the Dardanelles north to Romania and Serbia.
In the 8th century BC, Greek and Phoenician settlements began to be established along the shores of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, including in Thrace. City-states (poleis) such as Amphipolis, Abdera, and Maronia (in what is now northeastern Greece) were founded. Thrace is the place where East and West, North and South, meet, and during the Archaic period, it became a crossroads where Phoenicians and the emerging Greek civilizations encountered one another. This cultural interaction led to mutual influence and enabled the transfer of the Phoenician alphabet and writing system to Greece. In the Classical period (5th century BC), the Spartans and Athenians fought for control over the Thracian coastal colonies and nearby islands—above all, for the rich gold and silver mines on Mount Pangaion.
At that time, the Thracians organized themselves into several unions or kingdoms. The Bessi tribe was considered a kind of Thracian Brahmin priestly sect, engaged in prophecy and connected to the Dionysian center at Perperikon in the Rhodope Mountains. The Bessi lived not only in these mountains but also in the central part of the Maritza River valley and in the Balkan Mountains. In the 6th century BC, they developed military capabilities and began to establish a sort of independent kingdom in the region of the Rhodope and Rila Mountains, resisting both the Persian occupation of Thrace and, centuries later, the Roman conquest.
The Odrysian tribes lived in the lower plain of the Maritza River, and their ancient capital was probably Edirne in present-day Turkey. After the Persians were defeated by the Greeks, a union of Thracian tribes began to form around this center, eventually controlling most of the territory of modern-day Bulgaria and parts of the neighboring countries. This kingdom had no fixed capital or urban centers and was ruled by a spiritual aristocracy—those who built the wondrous tomb-temples. Over time, the center of the kingdom shifted to the Starosel region in the Sredna Gora Mountains and the Rose Valley at the foot of the Balkan Mountains. One of the last kings of the kingdom built a permanent capital near the City of Kazanlak which was named after him – Seuthopolis. At this same time the Thracians adopted the Greek script and some of their cultural customs.
North of the Balkan Mountains there were two more important and powerful tribal unions, independent for some time. In the northeast and on both sides of the Danube were the Getae, who were considered by the Greeks to be the noble among the Thracians, and whom the Romanians consider to be part of their heritage. In the northwest, these were the Triballi tribes – daring warriors who lived in the territories of eastern Serbia, northern Macedonia, northwestern Bulgaria, and were influenced by the Celts and the Illyrians.
The end of the Thracian period
In the 4th century BC, a king named Philip comes to power in Macedonia. He grew up as a young man in Thebes, which was the leading City of Greece at the time, and came to admire the Greek culture, learned its ways and brought them back with him to his home country: he established cities, organized an efficient system of government, reformed the army and taught it Greek ways of fighting (the phalanx), and educated the youth in the spirit of Greek philosophy, freedom and research. To this end, he brought to his Palace in Vergina the best pedagogues, chief among them the philosopher Aristotle, who was the personal tutor of his son Alexander the Great for several years, from the age of thirteen.
Philip succeeded in implementing the Greek system on a large scale. He created what could be considered the first modern state of its kind, with a network of roads, large-scale irrigation systems (canals), and silver and gold mines that generated significant income for the state treasury. The land of Macedonia is fertile and it is able to support a large population compared to the arid lands of Greece. Philip managed to reach a critical mass of people, money and army. He founded a standing army and added the Thessalian cavalry to the classical Greek combat system of the phalanx. With the help of the new army, he conquered Thrace, all of Greece and large parts of the Balkans at the end of the 4th century BC.
The Macedonian occupation led to many sacred Thracian sites in the mountains being hidden or abandoned. The spiritual Thracian tradition was partially forgotten, and the remainder went underground. Like many ancient peoples before them, the Thracians chose to hide and seal their sacred spiritual sites to prevent them from being desecrated by invaders. This was the period when many of the tomb-temples in the Valley of the Kings and the nearby mountains were deliberately covered with earth.
From this time onwards Thrace (Bulgaria) becomes part of the Hellenic-Roman world. Philip establishes cities throughout the country, the first and largest of which is Plovdiv, which at the same time was named after him – Philipopolis. He continues with the sanctification of some of the Thracian sites, especially the temple of Dionysus Sabazios in Perperikon.
It should be remembered in the context of Thracian spirituality that Alexander the Great mother, Olympia, met his father Philip at the mystery center of the Thracians in the island of Samothrace; In fact, they were the ritually consecrated couple, and thus the conception that summoned Alexander’s spirit into the world took place during the initiation rites of Samothrace.
Alexander’s journey to the East was not only a campaign of conquest, but also a quest for wisdom, meaning, and an attempt to merge all cultures, religions, and spiritual paths into a shared human search. His campaign was likely the most influential in history and marked the most significant encounter between East and West. As Alexander conquered the East, Eastern spiritual elements—such as the belief in a redeemer (Soter)—merged with Greek religion and spirituality. This fusion gave rise to a cultural synthesis combining Greek polis culture with Macedonian, Thracian, and Eastern traditions, which came to be known as Hellenism.
Following the conquests of Philip and Alexander, Thrace (Bulgaria) was under Hellenic rule and influence for nearly 200 years, until the Romans arrived, defeated the Macedonian phalanx at the battle of Fydna and established their rule over this part of the world as well. We will read about Roman Bulgaria in the next part of the book, but before that, let us follow a route tracing the ancient civilizations of Bulgaria—from prehistory to the end of the Thracian period—and visit the most impressive sites from these eras.
