Editing History of Bulgaria (section)

====Ancient Celtic invasions====
{{Main|Tylis|Scordisci|Serdi|Celtic settlement of Southeast Europe}}
[[File:Tribes in Ancient Thrace (English).png|thumb|Tribes in Thrace. Celtic peoples, including the Gauls of Tylis, are labelled in red]]
In 298 BC, [[Celts|Celtic]] tribes reached what is today Bulgaria and clashed with the forces of Macedonian king [[Cassander]] on Mount Haemos ([[Stara Planina]]). The Macedonians won the battle, but that did not stop the Celtic advancement. Many Thracian communities, weakened by the Macedonian occupation, fell under Celtic dominance.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Celts: A History |last=Ó hÓgáin |first=Dáithí|year=2002 |publisher=The Collins Press |location=Cork |isbn=0-85115-923-0 |page=50 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-yd1huHoXJwC&pg=PA50 |access-date=8 November 2011|quote=This, however, had little effect on the Celts, who within some years reached as far as Bulgaria. There, in 298 BC, a large body of them clashed with Cassander's army on the slopes of Mount Haemos.&nbsp;... The power of the Thracians had been reduced by the Macedonians, and now much of the area fell into Celtic hands. Many placenames of that area in ancient times bear witness to the presence of Celtic strongholds&nbsp;...}}</ref>

In 279 BC, one of the Celtic armies, led by [[Comontorius]], attacked Thrace and succeeded in conquering it. Comontorius established the kingdom of [[Tylis]] in what is now eastern Bulgaria.<ref name="Celtic culture">{{cite book |title=Celtic culture: A historical encyclopedia |last=Koch |first=John T. |year=2006 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |location=Santa Barbara, California |isbn=1-85109-440-7 |page= 156 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f899xH_quaMC&pg=PA15 |access-date=8 November 2011|quote=Their influence in Thrace (roughly modern Bulgaria and European Turkey) is very modest, with only occasional samples of armour and jewellery, but they established a kingdom known as [[Tylis]] (alternatively Tyle) on the Thracian coast of the Black Sea.}}</ref> The modern-day village of Tulovo bears the name of the relatively short-lived kingdom. Cultural interactions between Thracians and Celts are evidenced by several items containing elements of both cultures, such as the chariot of [[Mezek]] and almost certainly the [[Gundestrup cauldron]].<ref>{{cite book|title=The Celts: Bronze Age to New Age |last=Haywood |first=John |publisher=Pearson Education Limited |year=2004|isbn=0-582-50578-X |page=28 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_pVY18-0OCgC&pg=PA28 |access-date=11 November 2011|quote=A clearer example of interaction between Celts and Thacians is the famous Gundestrup cauldron, which was found in a Danish peat bog. This spectacular silver cauldron is decorated with images of Celtic gods and warriors but its workmanship is quite obviously Thracian, the product of a Thracian craftsman for a celtic patron&nbsp;...}}</ref>

Tylis lasted until 212 BC, when the Thracians managed to regain their dominant position in the region and disbanded it.<ref>Nikola Theodossiev, [http://www.caorc.org/fellowships/mellon/pubs/Theodossiev.pdf "Celtic Settlement in North-Western Thrace during the Late Fourth and Third Centuries BC"].</ref> Small bands of Celts survived in Western Bulgaria. One such tribe were the ''[[serdi]]'', from which ''Serdica'' - the ancient name of [[Sofia]] - originates.<ref>The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume 3, Part 2: The Assyrian and Babylonian Empires and Other States of the Near East, from the Eighth to the Sixth Centuries BC by John Boardman, I. E. S. Edwards, E. Sollberger, and N. G. L. Hammond, {{ISBN|0-521-22717-8}}, 1992, page 600: "In the place of the vanished Treres and Tilataei we find the Serdi for whom there is no evidence before the first century BC. It has for long being supposed on convincing linguistic and archeological grounds that this tribe was of Celtic origin."</ref> Even though the Celts remained in the Balkans for more than a century, their influence on the peninsula was modest.<ref name="Celtic culture"/> By the end of the 3rd century, a new threat appeared for the people of the Thracian region in the shape of the [[Roman Empire]].