On the road between Vize and Pınarhisar, a domed mausoleum rises unexpectedly from the fields of the Thracian plain – a lonely monument in an otherwise quiet agricultural landscape of European Turkey. The grave is located directly in front of Pınarhisar, on the site where the Byzantine fortress of Brysis once stood, the medieval predecessor of the current city. At first glance there is nothing to suggest dramatic events here. And yet this landscape was once in the maelstrom of empires.
