Neolithic Age The earliest traces of civilisation in the region of Stara Zagora date back to the end of the 7th millennium B.C. Then, almost simultaneously, four prehistoric settlements emerged on the present territory of Stara Zagora and its surroundings, one of which was the largest in the Bulgarian lands for 6 thousand years. Some scholars believe that the ancient Thracian Beroe was located there. In 1968, Neolithic dwellings from the mid-6th millennium BC were discovered in the town, which are the best preserved and richest collection in Europe and have been turned into a museum. A high density of Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlements has been identified, with over 120 prehistoric settlements and 5 prehistoric settlement mounds, with numerous finds, one of them being the largest in Europe. Life here began in the late 7th millennium BC and continued until the 12th century AD. Near Stara Zagora, a ritual structure nearly 8,000 years old has also been discovered. During extensive excavations in the 1970s near Stara Zagora, the world's largest ore mining centre was also discovered in the 5th millennium BC. These metal mines, the oldest in Europe, are nearly 7,600 years old. In 2014, archaeologists from the Regional History Museum (Stara Zagora) discovered the first copper factory in Europe, over 7,000 years old. The original Thracian settlement dates from the 5-4th century BC when it was called Beroe or Beroia. The city was founded by
Philip II of Macedon in 342 BC.
Antiquity Under the
Roman Empire, the city was renamed
Ulpia Augusta Traiana in honour of emperor
Trajan. The city grew to its largest extent under
Marcus Aurelius (161-180) and became the most important city in the Roman province of
Thrace. Its status and importance is evidenced by the visits of several emperors including
Septimius Severus (193-211),
Caracalla (211-217), and
Diocletian (294-305). The city became the largest economic, administrative and cultural centre in the province. The famous Roman historian
Ammianus Marcellinus wrote: "The great cities of Philippopolis and Augusta Traiana, which in antiquity were called Eumolpiada and Beroea, adorn the province of Thrace". The city has an independent municipal government, a city council and a people's assembly and enjoys a special status. By special order, it was in this city that the veterans of the wars fought by the
Roman Empire settled. During the reign of Emperor
Marcus Aurelius (161-180), straight streets, dozens of residential and public buildings, city walls enclosing an area of about 50 hectares and reinforced with about 40 towers, of which 11 have been excavated, water supply, sewerage, theatre building, temples, markets,
odeon,
thermae, forum were built in the city. A theatron with marble seats was also built, from which the spectacular gladiatorial battles, processions, celebrations, or assemblies where the important affairs of the city were decided, were observed. A gymnasium existed in the city, and sporting events were held in the
stadium. The arts and
musics developed in the city, as evidenced by the examples of bronze and stone sculpture, jewellery, pottery, glass objects, statues and inscriptions for
Orpheus that have been found. The
Battle of Beroe was fought near the city in 250 resulting in a Gothic Victory. It was probably after this event that the city walls were doubled like other cities in the region (e.g.
Diocletianopolis,
Serdica). In the 2nd-3rd century the city had its own coin mint showing its importance. In 377, in the
Gothic War (376-382), the Goths marched on Beroe to attack the Roman general Frigiderus but his scouts detected the invaders and he promptly withdrew to Illyria. The city was destroyed but rebuilt by
Justinian. During the period of Late Antiquity (4th-6th centuries) the town was again named Beroe. The times are connected with the relocation of the capital of the empire from Rome to Constantinople, the accelerated Christianization of the local population, the Gothic invasions at the end of the 4th century and the devastating raids of the Huns in the middle of the 5th century. In late antiquity, a mass Christianization of the local population began in Beroe, especially after the Medo-Latin Edict. The town was one of the most active centres of early Christianity. The first to introduce Christianity here was the apostle Carpus, one of the 70 apostles of
Jesus Christ and a disciple of the apostle Paul. Beroe became the seat of a bishopric, which grew into an archbishopric. Bishop Demophilus of Beroe takes part in the Serdika Church Council. In 355, the Roman
Pope Liberius was exiled to Beroe, and Demophilus went to Constantinople, where he reached the highest rank - Patriarch of the Byzantine Empire. In the 6th century, the city is mentioned as Beroe in the Gothic calendar under the date 19 November, associated with the famous 40 female martyrs. At the end of the century, the town was again destroyed, but then rebuilt and took the name Vereia.
Middle Ages For the first time the
Zagore area is mentioned in the accounts of George Amartole, repeated by
Symeon Logothete,
George Kedrenos and
Symeon the Metaphrast, where the help that Tervel's Bulgarian army gave to Emperor Justinian II in his restoration to the Constantinople throne is described. On this occasion, in 705, a peace treaty was signed between the Byzantine Empire and Bulgaria, according to which the Zagore region was ceded to Bulgaria. Three years later, according to other sources,
Justinian II tried to regain the area, but was defeated near Anchialos. According to the later accounts of
Theophanes the Confessor, in 716 a new treaty was concluded between the new emperor
Theodosius III and
Tervel, according to which, in addition to the area of Zagore finally ceded to the Bulgarians, another part of Thrace was ceded to the west of Zagore, as far as the "Mileon in Thrace". In 717. In 717 Tervel gave new aid to the empire with a large army and defeated the
Umayyad Caliphate that had
besieged Constantinople. After that, Beroe repeatedly passed now to Byzantium, now to Bulgaria. In 784 Beroe was in the possession of the Byzantine Empire and the empress
Irene visited the town together with her son
Constantine VI and a large retinue of courtiers. The empress rebuilt the town and called it Irenopolis - the city of Irena. The chronicler Theophanes the Confessor describes the visit of the empress to Beroe: "In that year, in the month of January, ind. seven, the said Stavracius returned from the land of the warehouses and on the hippodrome celebrated his victory with triumph. And in the month of May, of the same seventh Ind. the Empress Irene with her son and many troops went out into Thrace, bringing with her musical instruments, and came to Beroe. She ordered that this city should be built up, and renamed it Irenopolis." John's Byzantine army, and many of the captives, were settled as
foederati within the Byzantine frontier. In 812 Irenopolis was Bulgarian again and was called Beroe after the victorious war of Krum in 812. Historical sources show that after the peace treaty of 817, the Bulgarian state took extensive measures to defend and fortify the area south of the
Balkan Mountains from Beroe to the sea in order to annex it permanently to Bulgaria. By 850 - 860 Beroe was Bulgarian and the population was already majority Bulgarian by this time. For a few years the Byzantines took
Zagore, but during the conversion of Knyaz
Boris I in 864, the Zagora area and the town of Beroe were returned to Bulgaria. The chronicles about the return of the district also state its borders - from Sider (Zhelezni vrata, today Zmeyovski Pass) to Debelt. Within the borders of Bulgaria, the town was the centre of a
comitatus and retained its role as one of the largest administrative, economic and religious centres. The emperors lived here for a long time and used Boruyi as a second capital. For two centuries it was the residence of the Byzantine emperors of the
Komnenos family. From here they organized campaigns against the northern invaders - the
Pechenegs and
Cumans. The stone reliefs from Stara Zagora from the 8th - 9th centuries are of high cultural and historical value, they are recognized as a masterpiece of fine art and are one of the most interesting archaeological finds in Europe. By the end of the 10th century, the city was in Bulgarian hands and acquired a fully Bulgarian character. Bulgarians called the town Borui (a modified form of the Thracian Beroe). The traveller
Al-Idrisi, who visited the town, reported that in the 11th-12th centuries the road from the town of Veroi to the now unidentified town of Patsimiscus passed through successive fields of crops, continuous cultivated fields, large villages, many vineyards, orchards, past numerous herds of sheep, cattle and small livestock. During the
Crusades, when the troops of
Frederick I Barbarossa were passing through the Balkans, the Austrian priest Ansbert, who had access to the imperial chancellery, wrote of the town of Vereia as a "large, rich city" which the crusaders captured, sacked, and burned. In 1208 the Bulgarians defeated the
Latin Empire in the
battle of Boruy, also fought nearby.
Ottoman rule The
Ottomans conquered Stara Zagora in 1371. The earliest Ottoman document mentioning the town is from 1430. The Ottomans, knowing about the old history of the town as the centre of the Zagore region, welded a huge amount of cultural and historical heritage in the town and in the early years named it with various similar names - Zagr and Atik (Ancient Zagra), Zagra and Atik Hisar (Ancient City of Zagra), Zagra, Zagra and Eski Hisar, Zagral Eskisi (Old Zagra), Eski Zagora (Ancient Zagora), Zagrasi Atik, Zagralie Eskisi, Eskisi Zagora (Old Zagora). Later, however, in the seventeenth century, a single form - Eski Zagra. According to
Evliya Celebi, in the 17th century there were 3000 houses in Stara Zagora, about 760 roads and 14 neighborhoods. At that time there were 5 mosques. There was also 1 madrasah, 42 schools, 5 hamams (named Alaja, Pasha, Yeni, Chifte and Kyuchuk hamams), 1 besisten and 855 dukhans. It does not mention the presence of a Bulgarian population in the city, although there is evidence of tombstones with Bulgarian names. Further evidence of this is a surviving Greek inscription in the church of St. Demetrius, which indicates the presence of a church on this site long before 1743, serving the Christian population. In 1738 the population of Stara Zagora was predominantly Turkish. In 1788, a plague epidemic raged, and in 1792, famine and drought, livestock pestilence, and hailstorms destroyed all crops. During this time, military contingents passed through the settlements for punitive purposes, 'stripping the naked man of his shirt and the barefoot man of his shoes'. The worst years, however, were 1813, 1814 and 1815: these were the plague years known as the 'Great Plague' or 'Great Carron'. The next plague epidemic came in 1837 and was called 'The Little Plague'. A grade school was built in 1840 and the city's name was changed to
Zheleznik (; a
Slavic translation of
Beroe) in 1854 instead of the
Turkish (Also called Zağra-i Atik), but was renamed once again to
Stara Zagora in 1870. It was an administrative centre in
Edirne Vilayet before 1878 as "Zağra-i Atik".
Stara Zagora Uprising The
Herzegovina uprising in 1875 prompted Bulgarian revolutionaries to become active. On 12 August 1875, on the initiative of
Hristo Botev and
Stefan Stambolov, an extraordinary national assembly was held in
Bucharest, which decided to declare an immediate armed uprising in Bulgaria. Stara Zagora was chosen as the centre of the uprising. Kolyo Ganchev was elected the leader of the uprising in the town. The uprising was dispersed by the Ottomans, but served as an impetus for the liberation through the
April Uprising in 1876.
Battle and Stara Zagora massacre On 31 July 1877, the first major battle of the
Russo-Turkish War took place near Stara Zagora. The 48,000-strong Turkish army advanced on the town, which was defended only by a small Russian detachment and a unit of Bulgarian volunteers. After a six-hour fight for Stara Zagora, the Russian soldiers and Bulgarian volunteers surrendered to the pressure of the larger enemy army. The town then experienced its greatest tragedy when the Turkish army carried out a massacre against the unarmed civilians. The city was burned down and razed to the ground during three ensuing days of carnage. 14,500 Bulgarians from the town and villages south of the town lost their lives. Another 10,000 young women and girls were sold in the
slave markets of the Ottoman Empire. All Christian churches were attacked with artillery and burned. The only public building surviving the fire was the mosque, Eski Dzhamiya, which still stands today. Several monuments in modern Stara Zagora commemorate these events.
Eastern Rumelia After the
Liberation of Bulgaria from Ottoman rule in 1878, Stara Zagora became part of autonomous
Eastern Rumelia as a department centre before the two Bulgarian states finally merged in 1886 as a result of the
Unification of Bulgaria. The reconstruction of Stara Zagora began immediately after the Liberation. For this purpose, in 1878, the famous architect from
Austria-Hungary, Lubor Bayer, arrived in Stara Zagora and designed the modern rectangular checkerboard layout characteristic of today's Stara Zagora. On 5 October 1879 the governor general of Eastern Rumelia
Alexander Bogoridi laid the symbolic first stone for the reconstruction of the town. The only other town in Bulgaria with such a spatial plan was Nova Zagora, which was also burnt by the Turks.
Ancient monuments Many of the monuments from the Roman city have been excavated and are visible
in situ today and include: • City walls • The "Antique" Forum • Roman city streets and buildings • The Roman Baths • 4th-6th c. public building with mosaics • 4th c. private house with mosaics of Silenus with Bacchantes and of Dionysus's Procession • South city gate • Thracian Tomb Overlooking the "antique" forum is an unusual building in the form of a monumental auditorium in the shape of a theatre. == Geography ==