A farmer in Bulgaria accidentally discovered two graves of a wealthy Roman-era family, but they appear to tell "a sad family story."

Two large graves discovered in northern Bulgaria likely tell “a sad family story” about wealthy Roman landowners whose child predeceased them in the third century A.D., archaeologists say.

In December 2023, a farmer unexpectedly found the graves while plowing his field in the village of Nova Varbovka. Because this region was a Roman province called Moesia in antiquity, archaeologists from the Veliko Tarnovo Regional Museum of History came to excavate the graves.