Following a successful first archaeological field season at Heraclea Sintica, ARCS is in the final stages of preparing its 2013 Summer Archaeology Program, May 29 – July 1. As last year, ARCS’s Emil Nankov will collaborate with director of the National Institute of Archaeology with Museum, Prof. Lyudmil Vagalinksi, in the excavations at Heraclea Sintica for three weeks with a group of twelve American undergraduate and graduate students. Heraclea Sintica was founded ca. 300 BC and developed into an important Macedonian city; the city fell into the realm of the Roman Empire, thriving as a commercial center; during the early Byzantine period, there was a steady decline of the population, followed by abandonment of the city. The novelty in 2013 is the introduction of a 10-day pre-excavation itinerant course on the archaeology of Bulgaria. Nankov and ARCS Director, Eric De Sena, will lead the students on tours of sites and museums from Sofia to the Danube and the Black Sea and through the territory of ancient Thrace. Students will experience Thracian, Macedonian, Roman, Byzantine and early Medieval sites, including Novae, Nicopolis ad Istrum, Kazanlak and Apollonia Pontica. The 2013 field season will be followed by a conference in September sponsored by ARCS and NIAM.