West of the village of Aleksandrovo, about 20 kilometres east of Haskovo, the Roshava Chuka mound marks the setting of one of Bulgaria’s most important Thracian discoveries. The tomb was uncovered during archaeological work in 2000. Built in the second half of the fourth century BCE, it served as the final resting place of a wealthy Thracian ruler whose name is unknown. The modest entrance conceals an architectural sequence and a painted interior that make the monument far more than a mound in the landscape.
The burial mound itself rises around 15 metres and measures more than 70 metres across, according to Bulgaria’s Ministry of Tourism. A corridor roughly 15 metres long leads eastward into a small rectangular chamber and then a circular chamber covered by a bell-shaped vault. The official description gives the rectangular room as 1.92 by 1.5 metres and the round chamber as 3.3 metres in diameter and 3.4 metres high. A stone funerary bed along the south side had already been destroyed in antiquity.
