In the heart of the Balkans, where the West meets the East. The 2024 ICAZ Medieval Period Working Group in Sofia (Bulgaria).
The ICAZ Medieval group (MWG) was founded in 2021 and is the last working group created in ICAZ.
The group’s focus is a meeting point for all archaeozoologists working in and outside the Medieval Europe but adjacent and/or related to it. This group is interested in all interactions from the late Roman period/Late Antiquity to the early post-medieval period, and complements the work carried out by archaeozoologists working specifically within the Roman Period and Zooarchaeology of the Modern Era working groups.
The current coordinator of the MWG is Dr Veronica Aniceti (Spanish National Research Council), who was also present at this meeting and who organised the first meeting that was held at the University Museum of Bergen, in Norway, from 28th – 30th September, 2022. From the 2nd to 6th of October 2024, Sofia hosted the 2nd ICAZ Medieval Period Working Group meeting in a truly delightful and picturesque city.

The organisation was simply excellent. A small group of participants (between 50 to 60) from 23 countries took part in the conference and several students were also present to help. The meeting was dynamic and interesting because everyone was present at all the sessions with many exchanges and interactions between participants. The venue was located in the heart of the city, beneath the “Independence Square”, in the underground level of the glass dome near “Serdica” subway station, in the conference room of the Regional History Museum of Sofia. The glass dome is home to the archaeological remains of the Roman city of Serdica (Fig. 2). This location was by itself extremely original and attractive. Generous lunch was prepared everyday in the neighboring room where the conference was held and participants were happy not to disperse during this break.

The supporting Institutions of this conference were the National Museum of Natural History NMNHS, the National Archaeological Institute and Museum (NAIM) both affiliated to the Bulgarian Academy of Science (BAS). The 130 year old National Museum of Natural History is the oldest museum in Bulgaria, and the oldest and richest among the natural history museums on the Balkan Peninsula. It was founded in 1889 by the Royal Prince Ferdinand to accommodate his personal collections of birds, mammals and butterflies.
About the organisers
The two first organisers of the event, were Dr. Nadezhda Karastoyanova (NMNHS/ NAIM-BAS), current director of the Archaeozoology Laboratory and successor of Prof. Dr. Nikolai Spassov (palaeontologist and taxonomist of large mammals), and Stella Nikolova (PhD student in archaeozoology at NAIM-BAS), remarkable for her coordination talents and very active in the Archaeozoolgy Laboratory, helping in the curation of the comparative collections and also the study of medieval fauna of Bulgaria (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3 : Dr. Nadezhda (Nadia) Karastoyanova (Left) and Stella Nikolova (Right)
Nadia and Stella designed the conference website, the abstract//program book, and the notebooks, drawing inspiration from the iconography of medieval art. Some of these elements are found on Byzantine luxury glazed pottery sgraffito from the 12th–14th centuries (Figs. 4 & 5). Some of the banners and posters were created by a specialist with the support of the Balkan Heritage Foundation.
The symbol of the conference—the notebook cover image—is the Madara Rider (Fig. 5) a medieval rock relief in northeastern Bulgaria. The relief depicts a triumphant ruler and is widely recognized today as a symbol of the power of the First Bulgarian Empire. Its details support the most widely accepted theory of its Proto-Bulgarian origin, linking the image to Khan Tervel (r. 701–721 AD). It is also featured on the Bulgarian 1 lev coin. The carving is located 23 meters above ground on a vertical rock face.


Finally, the two other organisers were Dr. Petar Parvanov ((NAIM-BAS), archaeologist, who led the first day discussions and also guided us during the excursion, and Silvia Tosheva, Public Relation officer (NMNHS-BAS) in relation with the Bulgarian media and in charge of the preparation of the best talk and poster prizes.
The conference program
The opening ceremony and wine reception on Wednesday 2nd October was held in the beautiful 15th century building of the National Archaeological Museum (Fig. 6).

A total of 41 talks representing institutions of 23 countries were presented during the three full days within 6 sessions: 9 talks were presented in the Eastern Europe and Middle East session, 5 in the Central Europe session, 8 in the Iberian peninsula session, 3 in the Italian peninsula session, 8 in the Greenland, Western Europe session, 5 in the Methodology, Genetics, Innovations session and finally 12 posters were presented at the poster session on the walls of the conference room.
The conference was introduced by the keynote of Dr David Orton (University of York) with an intriguing and challenging talk entitled “In small bones forgotten”: fish, rodents, and the potential of seemingly insignificant remains to address key historical issues (Fig. 7).

The closing keynote was presented by Prof. Dr. Zlatozar Boev (NMNHS-BAS), a specialist in Zoology and Paleontology, with the fascinating talk on “Birds and people in Medieval Bulgaria. Review of the subfossil record of birds during the First and Second Bulgarian Empires” (Fig.8).

Among the important talks in direct relation with the foundation of this group, we heard László Bartosiewicz on “Seventy years of medieval archaeozoology in Hungary” within the Central Europe session (Fig. 9).

Awards for best presentations and poster
The organisers set up a ballot box to vote for the best oral presentation and the best poster. An award session was held at the end of the conference and the prize for the best presentation was awarded to Annelise Binois-Roman (Paris 1- Panthéon Sorbonne) for her presentation entitled “Porcine pathology and sanitary issues in urban France (12th to 16th c. AD)” (Fig. 10).

The prize for the best poster went to Teodora and Mladen Mladenović (Institute of Archaeology, Belgrade, Serbia) for their poster entitled “Dining in the clouds: An archaeozoological perspective of the Medieval and the Modern periods diet in Koznik Fortress (Southern Serbia)” (Fig. 11).

A bit on the excursions and other curiosities
Bulgaria has a rich religious heritage, with numerous beautiful Orthodox Christian churches and monasteries. Among the highlights of our visits and excursions were the imposing Alexander Nevski Cathedral (Fig.12) in Sofia and the exceptional 10th to 13th centuries highlands’ UNESCO-listed Rila monastery (Figs.13-15). Here we can see the profusion of mural paintings on the outside walls and in particular the very rare representations of hell with demons/devils devouring the weak souls.




On the way back to Sofia, we stopped to visit the tiny Boyana church at the foot of Vitocha Mountain, a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its exceptional frescoes, dating to the 10th to mid-13th centuries (Fig. 16).

Photo © M. Mashkour
For lunch we were taken to the Gorski Kat Restaurant, where we ate a very tasty grilled trout caught from the mountain river nearby. We luckily also crossed on the way a transhumant herd of long thin tail, hornless sheep, heading down the hills from the highlands for the autumn migration (Fig. 17).

As the final highlight of our explorations, after the excursion, we were dragged by Mark Beech (Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi) and guided by Stella through the maze of Sofia University to under the dome of the northern wing, to discover the splendid skeleton of ancient Proboscidea, Deinotherium thraciensis Nikolov, that lived 10 million years ago and kept today at the Museum of Paleontology and Historical Geology. This adult specimen of almost 7m in length and 4.2m in height is remarkable for it had downward curving tusks attached to the lower jaw. This is the best-preserved skeleton of this prehistoric animal in the world. (Fig. 18).

That evening the participants were invited to a gathering in a bar to play board games. Since 2020, ALOS Center for Informal Education and Cultural Activities and Atelier Dabrava, together with historians and archaeologists from 11 museums across the country, have worked on the reconstruction of historical board games, evidence of these being played in Bulgaria during Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The special conference gifts included, a miniature medieval board game made from natural materials and featuring Bulgarian medieval symbols, designed by ALOS.
The final dinner was organized and funded by the Balkan Heritage Foundation, which runs archaeological field schools at Bulgarian archaeological sites. The National Science Fund covered part of the accommodation and coffee break expenses. The event was organized under the patronage of UNESCO.
Final words about the conference
Back to the this newborn working group of ICAZ, I was delighted to attend for the first time this MWG conference where I learned so much from all the presentations. The broad spectrum of subjects included classical archaeozoology of vertebrates (mammalian, bird, reptilian, fish) and non-vertebrates (mollusks and gastropods), worked bones and even applied historical and prosopographical methods for the study of a particular taxa (see Afonso Soares de Sousa, Tiago Viúla de Faria’ talk)”. The talks also covered a vast geographic area stretching from the two extremities of the Western Europe, from Iberian Peninsula and Greenland, to the other part of the Middle East, from the Iranian Plateau to the Arabian Peninsula.
The conference was a full success thanks to the organisers, to the charming city of Sofia, to all the proposed post-conference activities, and of course, to the very high quality of the talks and posters. Added to these important elements, I have to stress the fact that we were a small gregarious friendly group (Fig. 19), interacting 10 hours a day under a glass dome, during 4 days. I believe this creates real cohesion and intellectual wellness.

However, the MWG will certainly grow in size during the coming years and will attract more members due to the development of the Medieval archaeology in Eurasia, together with the growth of the zooarchaeological community.
The next conference meeting will be organized by Bea Decupere and Quentin Goffette at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Autumn 2026 and will be announced on the website of the ICAZ-MWG.
On Sunday 6th of October, the conference ended with the group photo (Fig. 20) and a lot of unforgettable memories.

The author
Marjan Mashkour is researcher at the CNRS UMR 7209 (BioArch)- BioArchéologie, Interactions Sociétés Environnements – MNHN.
OpenEdition vous propose de citer ce billet de la manière suivante :
Marjan Mashkour (28 février 2025). In the heart of the Balkans, where the West meets the East. The 2024 ICAZ Medieval Period Working Group in Sofia (Bulgaria). Bioarchéologies. Consulté le 26 avril 2025 à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/13ej7
Tres bien. Merci beaucoup.