The Valley of the Kings? Social Complexity of Inland Thrace during the First Millennium BC.

Abstract

The Odrysian kingdom of Thrace is claimed to be a well-defined state, a solid political unit that exercised a strong influence on political events in the Aegean world during 5th and 4th centuries BC (Archibald 1998). Greek historical sources are used to support this claim, yet their interpretation is problematic. Ancient authors remain indirect and highly ambiguous, infusing personal agendas and Graeco-centric perceptions into their observations. Archaeological evidence seems to offer much more robust support for the claim of a powerful Thracian state with its overwhelming number of sumptuous burial assemblages that attest to intense social stratification and wealth inequality among the Thracian population during the Classical and post-Classical periods (Kitov 2008, Fol and Marazov 1977). The interpretations, based principally on the mortuary data, have indeed been compelling and intuitively satisfying, yet they have failed to incorporate other classes of evidence that are inconsistent with the “state” model, such as divergent historical accounts, absence of urban centers, and lack of administrative and ideological manifestations of the alleged state. My study corrects this mortuary based bias in the study of the Odrysian kingdom by introducing settlement pattern data based on original research in the Thracian interior, specifically the Tundzha River watershed, an alleged homeland of the Odrysians. The existing regional legacy data will be contextualized and contrasted with the surface survey evidence, and explanation will be sought for divergence among them. My dissertation produces a definition of Thracian socio-political form(s) during the Classical period, drawing on the results of surface survey, its integration with several different classes of the archaeological record and complemented by critical use of anthropological neo-evolutionary theory. On the basis of the data acquired by the Tundzha Regional Archaeological Project, I argue that the Thracian polity does not approach the state-level of organization until the 4th century BC, when a major stimulus is delivered to the indigenous communities by the Macedonian conquest. The state institutions take root and only become manifest in the regional archaeological record after further delay - during the Roman period.