returned "home" on Saturday. Greece and Bulgaria reached an agreement this week, with Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev calling the accord "historic" and stressing the remains "belong to our two peoples." In exchange, Greece receives 48 objects pillaged by Bulgarian troops from churches and monasteries in northern Greece during World War I. Samuel reigned from 997 to 1014, leading campaigns against the Byzantine Empire and extending his authority across the Balkans, with the Lake Prespa and Lake Ohrid region as his powerbase. The Byzantines regained the upper hand after 1001 and crushed his army in 1014. Samuel reportedly died of shock upon seeing thousands of his soldiers returning blinded by order of Emperor Basil II, the "Bulgar Slayer." His state fell to Byzantine rule four years later. However, Bulgaria is not alone in claiming Samuel—a huge statue of the tsar stands in Skopje, and North Macedonia also considers him "their" ruler. The dispute has been likened to the French-German tug-of-war over Charlemagne. In 2022, a bilateral commission recommended presenting Samuel as head of a state "most contemporary historiographers consider to be the Bulgarian Empire," based in present-day North Macedonia. The remains were discovered in the 1960s by Greek archaeologist Nikolaos Moutsopoulos on the Greek island of Saint Achilleios. Attribution rests on clues including tomb location, a rich gold-edged silk garment, the deceased's age, and an old fracture. (Bssnews)