Mr Sheldrick does ancient Thrace!

Bulgaria is the land of the Thracians who were a conglomerate of numerous tribes. The formation of the Thracian tribal community appreciably pre-dates - the Roman, the Celts, the Germans, the Slavs and the Scandinavians. The ancestors of the Thracians had lived on the Balkan Peninsula as far back as the new Stone Age. The name 'Thracians' first appeared at the end of the second millennium B.C. (according to Homer). 'From that time on this term gradually became the common name for the inhabitants of the area between the Carpathians and the Aegean Sea, the Black Sea and the valleys of the Morava and Vardar rivers'. During the twelfth and eleventh centuries B.C. the Thracians settled not only on the peninsular mainland and the Mediterranean islands, but also moved south-eastwards into Asia Minor. Thracians took part in the Trojan War. Homer recorded that the Thracian chieftain Rezos appeared before the walls of Troy with the most handsome and well-built horses, whiter than snow and fleet as deer.
During the first millennium B.C. the Thracian tribes were a relatively unified tribal entity.

Their history can be classified in two main periods: the first one dates from the end of the second millennium B.C. until the end of the 6th century B.C. During this period, and particularly after the eighth century B.C., Greek colonizers began to settle along the Aegean and Black Sea littoral. Quite a number of Greek city-colonies had Thracian names, including Byzantion- later Byzantium (Greek settlers from the town of Megara formed this colony, naming it after Byzas the Thracian). The second period, from the end of the 6th century until the turn of the 3rd century B.C. was the Golden Age of the Thracian state and culture.

According to Herodotus, the Thracians were a multitudinous people. Compared to the Greek city-states, whose total population numbered around 200-250 thousand, the tribal nucleus of the Thracian ethnos alone, the people living between the Danube and the Aegean Sea, numbered around one million throughout the first millennium B.C., according to rough estimates.

What the Thracians named their rulers is unknown (the Greeks called them basileus and the state basileia). The state ruler had a council of representatives of the tribal aristocracy. The taxes from the Thracian tribes within the state were levied in gold and silver as well as in the form of gifts such as cloth and other articles. A dragon was depicted on the standard of the Thracians.