Villa Armira - Ivaylovgrad

• Population place
  Ivailovgrad
• GPS coordinates
  N 41° 31' 47.03'' E 26° 7' 33.24''

• E-mail
• Working hours
• Closed

 One of the most interesting monuments from the era of the Roman Empire - Villa "Armira" is located in southern Bulgaria, 4 km southwest of Ivaylovgrad.

In 1964, during the construction of a dam, the builders accidentally came across traces of an ancient building. Subsequent archeological excavations have uncovered the remains of a suburban villa from the period of Roman rule in our lands. It became popular under the name Villa "Armira", after the name of the small river, a tributary of the river Arda, on the banks of which it was built.

The villa is luxurious, with a remarkable layout, lavish marble decoration and original floor mosaics. It is one of the earliest and most accurately dated villa complexes from Roman times, studied so far in Bulgaria, and the richest private palace from this period, discovered in today's Bulgarian lands. It was built in the second half of the 1st century AD. by a prominent Thracian aristocrat as the center of a large landed estate in the valley of the Armira River. On an area of ​​3600 square meters, among a beautiful garden for walks, stood an impressive two-storey residential building with a panoramic terrace and a significant number of different rooms, enclosing in the form of the letter "P" outdoor pool in the middle. There were 22 rooms on the first floor alone.

Over time, the villa became narrow for its owners and in the early third century was expanded to the east with the construction of a spacious guest room - triclinium, and utility rooms to it. In part of the building there was a Roman heating system - hypocaust, traces of which can be seen today.

As early as the first half of the 2nd century, a studio for artistic processing of the white marble mined in its vicinity was established at Villa Armira. school in the world. Thanks to them, the villa gradually acquired the splendor and splendor of a real palace of the Roman Empire.

The entire first floor was lined with perfectly made marble slabs and panels.They covered the walls of the corridors and all the representative rooms from floor to ceiling, as well as the pool itself, around which there was a wall colonnade and a beautiful fence. Almost 3,000 fragments of marble in very good condition were found during the excavations.

In terms of volume, variety and quality of marble decoration, Villa Armira remains the only such monument not only in today's Bulgarian lands, but also within the former Roman provinces of the Balkans, and its wall decoration makes it a unique monument of ancient architecture and art.

The floors of all rooms and corridors were covered with highly artistic mosaics with traditional motifs for ancient painting. Especially valuable is the mosaic from the master bedroom, at the northern end of which is a sculpture of the owner from the first half of the II century with his two children - the only portraits on a mosaic from the Roman era, found so far in Bulgaria.