Georgi Kitov, a Bulgarian archaeologist whose discoveries helped illuminate the culture of ancient Thrace, but whose methods – especially using bulldozers and backhoes – appalled his more meticulous colleagues, has died in Starosel, Bulgaria.
He was 65.
The cause of his death last Sunday was a heart attack, said the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, the state news agency reported.
Kitov gained fame for making one sensational discovery after another about the ancient people of Thrace and helping scientists develop a sharper picture of the kingdom, a confederation of tribes around the juncture of southern Europe and Asia Europe from the fifth century BC until AD 46, when it was conquered by Rome.
Kitov's bailiwick was dozens of mounds in what became known as the Valley of the Thracian Kings, in central Bulgaria.
He found ancient graves at Strelcha, a religious complex near Starosel and the tomb of King Seuthes III, near the town of Shipka.
He collected Thracian jewellery, weaponry and sculpture, including what many consider his finest discovery, the bronze head of a man with eyes of semiprecious stones.
In 2004, he discovered a dismembered skeleton positioned carefully in a tomb.
Nearby was a 700-gram mask of pure gold. It had a menacing expression and exquisitely rendered locks of hair.
In 2005, Time magazine called the discovery of the tomb "one of the most sensational archaeological finds of recent years.''
Criticisms of Kitov's methods went beyond his heavy-machinery and high-speed digging techniques, a far cry from the careful brush-and-trowel approach of most archaeologists.
An article in the journal Archaeology in 2005 questioned the quality of his scholarship, his business ethics, his self-promotion and his associations with people suspected of looting and selling antiquities.
The government announcement said Kitov had written more than 200 articles.
But Archaeology challenged his scholarship. The journal said that in 2004 he first theorized the gold mask discovered near the skeleton had belonged to one Thracian king, then decided it had been worn by a different king, born a century apart from the other, before concluding that it had been used by a warrior.
Six days into the 2004 Olympic Games, Kitov found a coin depicting what he said was an Olympic rower.
He told the Reuters news service he was dedicating it to the rowers competing in Athens.
"What he failed to mention," Archaeology said, "was that the ancient games had never hosted the sport of rowing."
