BASILIQUE ÉPISCOPALE DE PHILIPPOPOLIS

Inaugurated on April 18, 2022, at the foot of the old city, it is the last jewel of the heritage exhumed in Bulgaria. Private American financing made it possible to carry out a colossal building site during more than two years which mobilized hundreds of scientists and volunteers. The aim was to make the remains of the Episcopal Basilica of Philippopolis accessible and understandable to the general public. French-speaking heritage guides offer tours of this pearl of Roman Plovdiv presented in an exceptional museography. The vestiges integrate two strata of giant mosaic in a remarkable state of conservation. Peacocks and rosettes, crosses and meanders, parrots and guinea fowl, the motifs are a delight for the eyes. Their bright colors do not owe anything to the addition of colored pigments. The mosaicists of the time used chips of local stones that vary naturally from yellow to green, white to red to achieve their designs. The decorations and animal representations are loaded with meaning and symbols. Observe from above the mosaic with its grid aligning a collection of birds in diagonal crossings. Each bird evokes a stage of human life, the different ways to face it, but also the divine interventions. It is all the ornithological wealth of Bulgaria that we find on the ground! Stork, peacock, dove and other heron are represented in a magnificent iconography... Don't miss a guided tour which will bring you a fascinating light on their meaning. To keep the memory, it is even possible to adopt one of the birds of the mosaic with the Friends of the Basilica. We also reveal the history of a monumental site. The different strata exhumed revealed that the basilica was built on the ruins of an ancient building probably dating from the ^first century AD. Several centuries after its abandonment, in the ^10th-12th centuries, a large Christian necropolis appeared in its place, with a funeral chapel decorated with sumptuous frescoes.

The church of the ^5th-6th centuries, located near the eastern wall of Philippopolis, known as the small basilica, opened to the public in 2013, has contributed to the enhancement of this episcopal basilica. To complete your visit to Roman Plovdiv, it is also possible to discover the remains of a bourgeois residence.