Sozopol Foundation is a consultant in the implementation of the project activities.
Implementation period: 2012 ÷ 2013 years. Value of the implemented project activities – EUR 537 217,45. Funded by the European Union under the Operational Program “Regional Development” 2007 – 2013.
Villa Armira is an outstanding architectural monument aging over 2000 years and is the most lavishly decorated private home (palace) from the Roman period ever discovered on the Bulgarian lands. The villa was a centre of a landed estate founded by a rich Thracian aristocratic family. Its first owner was an heir of a Thracian king. For services rendered to the Roman authorities he received the status of a Roman citizen and thus gained the right to build a villa farm that he organized in the 50-70s of 1st century AD, only about twenty years after the final conquest of Thrace by Rome.
The villa location (the owners’ home) was carefully selected. It met the requirements for such buildings described by the ancient Roman authors Varon and Columella, who said that a villa had to be erected close to a big road but not on the road itself, in a beautiful locality close to water, on a southern slope, and most importantly – next to good neighbours. The Roman way of developing such villa farms as well as the employment of Roman palace architecture style, typical for the Mediterranean does not contradict to the Thracian origin of its owners and their belonging to the Thracian aristocracy.
The ancient Villa Armira covered an area of 3600 sq. m., housing a residential building and a garden designated for leisure. At the south-eastern end of the building a terrace allowed a view to the river and the beautiful landscape. The villa estate survived until 378 AD, when it was destroyed during the Gothic War.
The project activities included conservation, restoration, and anastylosis of a peristyle yard and lapidarium of Villa Armira.
Fragment of Roman mosaics on the floor in Villa Armira