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In 2021, eight Thracian silver objects came to my attention during a research stay at the Roman-Germanic Central Museum, Leibniz Research Institute for Archaeology (RGCM) Mainz, Germany, which have been ignored by the scientific community so far. The presented silver convolute, which forms part of the collection of the RGCM, consist of two bracelets, three fibulae and three hemispherical fragments. As the archaeological context is missing, the objects had been analysed and placed in a chronological and geographical context with other objects of this kind. It was established that the three fibulae belong to the Bukyovtsi Type. The bracelets have strong similarities with pieces from several hoards in north-western and central Bulgaria, for example from Vladinya (Lovech region) or Granitovo (Belogradchik region). Due to the stylistic features of the objects, they can be dated to the second half of the 4th century BC.

In 2021, eight Thracian silver objects came to my attention during a research stay at the Roman-Germanic Central Museum, Leibniz Research Institute for Archaeology (RGCM) Mainz, Germany, which have been ignored by the scientific community so far. The presented silver convolute, which forms part of the collection of the RGCM, consist of two bracelets, three fibulae and three hemispherical fragments. As the archaeological context is missing, the objects had been analysed and placed in a chronological and geographical context with other objects of this kind. It was established that the three fibulae belong to the Bukyovtsi Type. The bracelets have strong similarities with pieces from several hoards in north-western and central Bulgaria, for example from Vladinya (Lovech region) or Granitovo (Belogradchik region). Due to the stylistic features of the objects, they can be dated to the second half of the 4th century BC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper deals with the spread of the name C. Iulius among the Thracian sailors in the Roman fleet in the second century. Analysis of Roman diplomas reveals that C. Iulius was one of the typical military names that soldiers of peregrine origin, such as these Thracians, would take if they had no other preferences. The name had a good, very Roman sound to them. In the second century, however, there were still Thracian aristocrats whose Roman citizenship can be linked with Caligula. This shows that, on the one hand, the name may have indicated hereditary dignity when associated with the aristocracy and descendants of the last Thracian kings; but on the other hand, it could have revealed a typical military background when held by newly Romanized Thracians in the second century.

The paper deals with possible traces of the Indo-European adjective suffix *-ṷent- / *-ṷn̥t- in the onomastic remnants of Thracian and Slavic languages, some of them already assumed by Vladimir Georgiev (*aps-ynth- ‘rich in aspen trees' as underlying the names of a tribe, their land, a river and a town in it to the north of the Thracian Chersonesos; Thrac. epiclesis of Aphrodite Zēr-ynthía: ‘rich in wild animals', a kind of pótnia thērôn) and by the author himself (Gk Simó-eis, -entos, a river in Troad < Thrac. *zimo-wenϑ- = OInd. himá-vant- ‘snowy' of mountains, here of a mountain stream, cf. Gk. *kheimá-rhous ‘winter-flowing'). To these instances the epiclesis of Hera Rhēsk-ynthís is added, presumably deriving from the stem rēsk- (also raisk-, resk-) of unknown meaning but well-attested in Thracian anthroponymy. As for the Slavic evidence, the adjective *bogovętъ ‘blessed' (in the phrase ‘every blessed day', only Serbo-Croatian and Slovak) is taken into consideration as a possible counterpart to OInd. bhagavant-, but the interpretation by Marta Bjeletić as a compound of *bogъ ‘God' and *ęti ‘take' seems more plausible. The remaining discussion focuses on the intriguing possibility that the Common Slavic comparative *vęt-jь,vęt-ьši suppletive to *velьjь ‘big, large, great' is somewhat connected with *-ṷent-, either as arisen from the adjectives in *-ṷent- by the way of decomposition or inversely, as reflecting a root noun which was to become, by the way of composition, an adjective suffix known from other IE languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a brief overview of the achievements of Bulgarian onomastics in the contemporary age, from the turn of the century until the present day. It reviews the most significant works in toponymy and anthroponymy, the field's two main branches, as well as disciplines that are less developed in the country, such as astronomy. Particular focus has been placed on the new research uncovering the traces left by the Thracian language in modern Bulgarian onomastics. The work presents some conclusions concerning the contributions of onomastic science in Bulgaria in the past few years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The toponym and hydronym Busur is ‘the name of the village 25 km south-west of Petrovac na Mlavi in eastern Serbia’ and ‘the name of the river south-west of Petrovac na Mlavi in eastern Serbia, which is a 27 km long left tributary of the Mlava river, on the bank of which lays a village with the same name, being named after the river.’ Given that in ancient times Petrovac na Mlavi and its surroundings were inhabited by the Thracian tribe Triballi, we believe, according to the logic, that the river name Busur is of Thracian origin. This leads us to the presumed proto-Thracian form *Bruzásuras, which would consist of two Thracian words: bruzаs «fast», and suras „fl ow, river“, which make a compound name ‘fastfl owing current, fast-fl owing river’, confi rmed in the Thracian onomastica as the personal name Bruzas (Greek Βρυζος) ‘approx. ‡Swift’ and the name of the fortress on the Haemus Mountains/Stara planina Suras (Greek Σουρας) after certain (adjacent) ‘fl ow, river’ with the name Suras, or, on the other side, in the Thracian name of the small town of Nea Malgara in the Greek part of Thracia *Surakella (Latin Syracella, Greek *Συρακελλη) meaning ‘(?) water spring, river spring’. This proto-Thracian form would have evolved by Thracian syncope (ejection) of the middle -а-, assimilation zs > ss and dissimilation r : r > ø : r into Thracian form *Bússuras, which would have been in Latin *Bússurus, from where the following might have come – Balkan Romance form *Búsur(u), Slavic *Бу̏суръ, Old Serbian *Бу̏сурь, and fi nally Serbian Бу̏сур. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper deals with the spread of the name C. Iulius among the Thracian sailors in the Roman fleet in the second century. Analysis of Roman diplomas reveals that C. Iulius was one of the typical military names that soldiers of peregrine origin, such as these Thracians, would take if they had no other preferences. The name had a good, very Roman sound to them. In the second century, however, there were still Thracian aristocrats whose Roman citizenship can be linked with Caligula. This shows that, on the one hand, the name may have indicated hereditary dignity when associated with the aristocracy and descendants of the last Thracian kings; but on the other hand, it could have revealed a typical military background when held by newly Romanized Thracians in the second century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a deficit in the systematic studies of therefl exes of the Indo-European laryngeals in the Thracian language, mostly due to poor language data and the scarcity of certain etymologies. Partial observations on the behaviour of laryngeals in certain positions in the Thracian have been made over the years by some Bulgarian Indoeuropeanists, who examined them from comparative perspective, including their reflexes in ancient Greek and pre-Hellenic (Pelasgian) language1. In this paper, I will try to track and summarize all reflexes of the Indo-European laryngeals in Thracian, according to their positions in the word, by working only with certain or very likely etymologies of Thracian glosses and onomastic material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper updates and adds new data regarding the situation of the reconstructable Pre-Indo-European root *OR-, *UR-, also suggested as probable in the case of some previously analysed place-names, Vrbas and Varna, possibly also in Warszawa. This time, the focus is on Romanian oraș, dialectal also uraș ‘township' and uriaș ‘giant, very big', obviously related to a series of place names like Orșova, Oradea and others, in their turn reflecting the ancient Thracian forms attested as ora, oros, oron in a series of Thracian place names like Al-oros, Az-oros, El-oros, Gaz-oros, Thest-oros, Milk-oros, Tarp-oron, Clev-ora, Cap-ora, also in the case of the river name Ordessos, with a probable real pronunciation *ordeʃ (ordeš). In the light of this comparative analysis, the current hypothesis, largely spread among linguists, that Rom. oraș is a borrowing from Hung. város ‘township' cannot be held for valid, as there are several undocumented phonetic evolutions and, equally important, the relationship of these forms has been ignored, including the obvious relationship oraș/uraș ~ uriaș/oriaș, the latter being a usual term of the Romanian tales. Hung. vár ‘a fortress' reflects a borrowing from Rom. oara, now in place names only, while város is an internal evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]