The labyrinth
Among the rocks.
Delysia v — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Delysia v — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Delysia v — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Delysia v — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Delysia v — CC BY-SA 4.0
Beglik Tash is a prehistoric rock site on Bulgaria's southern Black Sea coast, a few kilometres north of the town of Primorsko and about 33 km southeast of Burgas in a straight line. Thracian tribes took it over again in the Iron Age. The Czech-Bulgarian historian and archaeologist Karel Škorpil gave the first scientific account of it in the late 19th century, and excavations began in 2002. The name is probably linked to the Ottoman sheep tax called the beglik and a word for stones. Archaeologists have found pottery from the Early Iron Age, between the 10th and 6th centuries BC, as well as from classical antiquity and the Middle Ages. The rocks are huge megaliths of hardened magma from an ancient Mesozoic volcano, most bearing traces of old carving. Among them are the remains of a labyrinth visitors can pass through, a sundial formed of giant stones, a 150-tonne boulder that touches the ground at only two points, and a narrow cave where a ray of sunlight enters at noon each day. Visitors wander among the rocks on paths through the woods, walk the labyrinth and marvel at the balanced boulder. It is an open-air museum visited by about 40,000 people a year and is easy to pair with a day on Primorsko's beaches.
Among the rocks.
Giant stones.
A ray of sun.
North of Primorsko, southern Black Sea coast, Bulgaria
The labyrinth, the sundial and the balanced boulder.
Primorsko's beaches.