Beach bar used a 1,700-year-old Roman sarcophagus as table — until a tourist noticed
An attentive tourist at a beach bar in Bulgaria noticed an old-looking table. Archaeologists later identified the item as an ancient Roman sarcophagus, but a mystery lingers.
A former law enforcement officer was on vacation in Varna when they noticed an antique-looking stone coffin at the beach, Bulgaria’s Ministry of Interior said in a July 24 news release. The tourist reported it to officials.
Archaeologists arrived and soon identified the item as a 1,700-year-old Roman sarcophagus.
A photo shows the decorated sarcophagus. Its sides have carved garlands, flowers, grapes and several heads of a horned ox-like animal. Its lid was missing, replaced with a table-like top that doesn’t match the rest of the structure.
Officials only specified where the sarcophagus was found: a beachfront known as St. St. Constantine and Elena. Soon after, BIRD, an investigative news outlet in Bulgaria, traced the ancient coffin to the Radjana Beach bar.
A May 2022 photo of Radjana Beach shared on Google Maps shows several people sitting around a table that looks like the ancient Roman sarcophagus. A bar is visible in the background.
The sarcophagus-turned-bar table is visible in other Google Maps photos and street views of Radjana Beach from 2021 and 2020. A promotional video of the bar shared on YouTube in 2020 also shows the Roman sarcophagus.
Based on the photos, the 1,700-year-old coffin had likely been sitting on the beach for about four years.
Radjana Beach did not immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment on Aug. 13. The company that owns the bar declined to comment to the Bulgarian news outlet Dnevnik.
Archaeologists repeatedly confirmed to Dnevnik and Dunav Most, another Bulgarian news outlet, that the sarcophagus was authentic even though it had been repainted at some point.
The coffin measures about 3 feet by 8 feet by 2.5 feet, officials said. The heavy artifact was moved to the Archaeological Museum in Varna.
The origin of the sarcophagus remains a mystery. Its design style is not typical for Varna and suggests the coffin was likely brought from elsewhere in Bulgaria, archaeologists told Dnevnik.
In Bulgaria, “every object that has archaeological value, regardless of where, when and by whom it was found, belongs to the state,” archaeologist Alexander Minchev told Bulgarian National Television, according to The Sofia Globe.
Officials said they reported the sarcophagus case to a prosecutor and initiated pretrial proceedings but did not specify the charges or the accused.
Varna sits along the Black Sea in eastern Bulgaria. The Balkan country borders Greece, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Turkey.
Google Translate was used to translate the news release from Bulgaria’s Ministry of Interior, Facebook post from BIRD, YouTube video from Eclipse Vision and articles from Dnevnik and Dunav Most.
This story was originally published August 14, 2024 at 10:03 AM with the headline "Beach bar used a 1,700-year-old Roman sarcophagus as table — until a tourist noticed."
