site.btaBronze Belt Applique with Lion in Relief Found at Perperikon

Archaeologists found a bronze belt applique with an image of a lion at Perperikon, the ancient Thracian city in the Eastern Rhodopi Mountains, archaeology professor Nikolay Ovcharov said on Wednesday. 

He noted that this is a heraldic symbol, which raises the question if a new version of the Bulgarian royal coat of arms from the 14th century has been discovered. He said that most researchers accept as a fact that a coat of arms with three heraldic lions took shape under Tsar Ivan Shishman and that a whole series of Western European heraldic books from the 15th-17th centuries depict three heraldic lions placed above one another as the coat of arms of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom. 

With the new relief image found at Perperikon, another version of the heraldic lion appears, which is probably copied from West European coats of arms. According to Ovcharov, the image is of a lion passant, which is found in the coats of arms of West European nobles from the 13th and 14th centuries.

A silver coin of Tsar Ivan Alexander was also found at Perperikon, which testifies to Bulgaria's successful war against the Byzantine Empire in 1344, Ovcharov added. The archeological campaign at Perperikon will last four months, with archaeologists now studying the upper layers of the ancient Thracian city, where one of the medieval districts from the Second Bulgarian Kingdom was discovered.