Tools & tillage: a journal on the history of the implements of cultivation and other agricultural processes (2.1972/1975)

ON THE TERMINOLOGI AND CLASSIFICATION
OF BULGARIAN PLOUGH IRONS

Vassil Marinov

Much has been written about plough irons in
the archaeological and ethnographic literature
in Bulgaria. They are referred to, for instance,
as ploughing and cultivating equipment, ralnici,
naralnici, rakavest tip palesnik, drazcesti lemezi,
drazcest tip palesnici (Dukov 155-162, 165-169),
iron agricultural implements, rakavest i drazcest
lemez (Vakarelski 1936, 425-433), agricultural
implements, palesnici of the drazcest type (veslo-
viden, kopieviden) (Detev 260-265), zelezen lemez
(palesnik) (Dzambov 187, 188), vtulceni lemezi
(Changova 19-22) etc. These examples show that
the typology and classification of the plough
irons is not yet settled, leading to difficulties in
description, listing, and mapping.
In Bulgaria, all ralos, whether they have
straight (Marinov 1966, 27-31; Marinov 1969,
38; Vakarelski 1969, 14-16) or curved beams are
always equipped with iron parts made by local
smiths - the palesnik (pl. palesnici), lemez (pl.
lemezi), cereslo (pl. ceresla) and various other
blades of the coulter type. None of these is ca-
pable of being used in cultivating operations ex-
cept when attached to the ralo, and they are
therefore correctly described by Chr. Vakarelski,
T. Gerasimov, P. Detev, J. Changova and Zv.
Dremsizova as “agricultural equipment” or
“equipment” (seciva), for wooden ralos.
The terminology used by earlier authors - e. g.
ralnici, naralnici, nakonecnici, ralni oradija, oratni
oradija, etc. - is not well chosen, and has led to
confusion, since the names are either transferred
in sense, like nakonecnici, erroneous like ralni
oradija (oratni oradija); or misleading like ralnici

(naralnici), for there is a special ploughshare type,
lemez, that the Bulgarian farmers also call ralnik
(pl. ralnici).
The classification of iron parts of the wooden
ralo and plough is also a subject of uncertainty.
In 1929, Chr. Vakarelski wrote: “Two kinds
of iron parts were fixed on the point of the
plough-sole (rdlica) for tilling the soil” (Vaka-
relski 1929, 73), and in 1969, “the iron part of
the ralo is usually called palesnik and lemez.
These terms reflect a certain typological diffe-
rence: palesnik is the long-tanged share, lemez
the socketed share. At all events, there are several
examples of these variants” (Vakarelski 1969, 17).
He illustrated four variants of the palesnik (fig. 2),
some of the lemez (fig. 1), and one dzevgalo with
a curved iron blade and wooden tang (fig. 3). He
also showed that in some parts of Bulgaria the
terms palesnik and lemez were reversed in sense,
the former being applied to the socketed share,
the latter to the tanged. This was presumably
due to the migration of palesnik users into a
lemez area, the name being transferred, but not
the equipment itself; and also to the ousting of
the palesnik by the lemez in some areas. Chr.
Vakarelski’s map, for example, marks the Vidin
district of north-west Bulgaria as one from which
the palesnik had disappeared, and where the
asymmetrical lemez (here called ralnik) alone was
to be found (Vakarelski 1929, fig. 20 - Map 83,
84, 106-107).
In 1936, however, he used the term lemez in
the general sense of Aploughshare”, and main-
tained that it was possible “to differentiate be-