Bulgaria’s Valley of the Thracian Kings has lots of secrets

View of the so-called Valley of the Thracian Kings near the central Bulgarian town of Kazanlak. Photo: AFP

In the fields of Bulgaria they are everywhere – hundreds of mounds like huge molehills concealing the gold-filled tombs of ancient kings who left no other trace of their rule.

Known as tumuli, the burial mounds are the only remnants of the Thracian civilisation that inhabited the Balkan peninsula from the 2nd millennium BCE to the 3rd century CE.