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Plovdiv observes World Heritage Days in old town, Great Basilica

<p>(Photo courtesy of BTA)</p>

(Photo courtesy of BTA)

PLOVDIV, Southcentral, Bulgaria – Plovdiv celebrates the International Day for Monuments and Sites with open doors in the Bishop's Basilica of Philippopolis and emblematic houses in the Old Town, the Culture Department of the municipal administration announced on Tuesday.

The Basilica also marks two years since its official opening.

Citizens and visitors will have the opportunity to meet the teams involved in the research, restoration and exposure of the Bishop's Basilica of Philippopolis. Representatives of the teams will be available at the Basilica in two time slots - from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and from 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. The hours of operation of the Basilica are daily from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The Bishop's Basilica of Philippopolis was discovered during rescue archaeological excavations in the period 1982-1986. It is a three-aisled single-bay building, 82.80 metres long and 36 metres wide. The floors of the basilica are covered with two layers of multicolored mosaics with an area exceeding 2,000 square meters.

The mosaics were made using the opus tessellatum technique where small pebbles of different colors are arranged in an image on a mortar base. The work is slow - in one day a craftsman could arrange a sector of about 0.5 square meters. Pebbles in white, black, yellow, ochre, red, several shades of blue and green were used for the mosaics of the Bishop's Basilica.

Since 2018, the Bishop's Basilica has been included in the UNESCO Indicative List of Cultural and Natural Heritage for Bulgaria as part of the serial site "Bishop's Basilica and Late Antique Mosaics of Philippopolis, Roman Province of Thrace".

April 18 is the International Day for Monuments and Sites.

The day has been celebrated since 1984 by a decision of UNESCO. On this day, the national heritage is paid tribute to and people dedicated to the cause of its preservation are honored. (BTA)


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