UNESCO has approved the expansion of the territory of the World Heritage Site “Ancient City of Nessebar” during the 45th expanded session of the World Heritage Committee being held in Riyadh, capital of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The new territory also includes part of the Nessebar Aquatory on the southern and northern sides of the peninsula. The expansion is at a proposal of Bulgaria and is the result of the intensive research that the Center for Underwater Archaeology in Sozopol has been conducting since 2017.
During these researches, there is a continuation of the work of the prof. Lubka Ognenova from the 80s of the XX century, parts of the fort walls of ancient Mesambria that refer to Antiquity and the Middle Ages have been discovered.
The new territory also includes a part of an ancient street, as well as protective harbor facilities. Through its centuries-old development, due to the rise in sea levels in the Black Sea and the specifics of geological construction on the peninsula, the city lost about a quarter of its territory.
For this reason, significant archeological structures are today underwater.
The inclusion of the extended territory of Nessebar, which already includes the peninsula and underwater finds, distinguishes the Ancient Town among other UNESCO sites with its unique combination of cultural heritage on land and underwater.
The proposal to expand the territory of the Ancient Town of Nessebar was presented to UNESCO by the Ministry of Culture, the National Commission for UNESCO – Bulgaria, as well as experts from the National Institute for Real Cultural Heritage of the MK, with the active assistance of the Permanent Representation of Bulgaria to UNESCO in Paris.
