Almost every year Bulgarian archaeologists are making sensational discoveries which attract the attention not only of most Bulgarians, but also of international scholars and the public worldwide. People usually know only about the recent archaeological endeavors in Bulgaria, so in several consecutive articles I will try to present the entire exciting history of archaeology in Bulgaria, from its early beginnings up to the present day. Many readers would be surprised to learn that the first excavations in the Bulgarian lands occurred in the late 16th and 17th centuries, when Bulgaria was part of the Ottoman Empire and long before the study of the classical world became an actual academic discipline distinct from early modern European antiquarianism. The earliest record was given by Reinhold Lubenau, a German pharmacist and traveler