Dr Katya Melamed

Katya Melamed, PhD, is one of Bulgaria’s foremost experts in Medieval Archaeology. Recently retired from the Bulgarian Institute of Archaeology, she continues to direct a number of excavations. She has a particular interest in the continuation of burial practices from the Thracians to the Christian era. Educated at St. Cyril and Methodius University, Veliko Turnovo, the Institute of Archaeology in Poland, and London University’s Institute of Archaeology. She has published many works in her particular research fields: the development of Balkan culture in the Late Roman and Early Byzantine periods; the pagan period of the early Middle Ages; continuities between antique and medieval culture; the archaeology and culture of the great migration period in Balkan history, and ethnography and ethno-archaeology. Katya is at present compiling a Bulgarian-English archaeological dictionary. From the very beginning, Katya has made crucial contributions to the development of ASA’s tour in Bulgaria. Her vast knowledge of Bulgarian history, her eloquence, and her kind and convivial nature have earned her many devotees among ASA travellers.