A visit to the Varna Archaeological museum today – and that was after our trip to see the Roman baths (the fourth biggest in Europe). Maybe one can have too many antiquities … Anyway, the skeleton above was from a grave of a man from the second half of the 5th millenium BC, uncovered in Varna in 1972. The grave was filled with gold grave goods, so he was obviously quite important.
Someone tried to reconstruct his appearance from his skull:
Looks pretty patrician to me.
The point is that the gold in the grave, along with some other examples, is the oldest worked gold in the world – and is almost pure.
This head from the same period seemed almost contemporary, to me. She is known as ‘The Goddess of the Lake’ from the Late Copper Age (second half of 5th millenium BC) and found submerged in a lake near Varna.
There were a ton of other beautiful objects in this excellent museum, but my favourites were these exquisite earrings:
And I loved this Roman panther fountain which was alive with spots!
Checked your five posts now. Quietly admiring: rocks, concrete, panorama, paintings and gold with dead bodies. Materials and materials of intriguing resonances… I’m enjoying these, hope you’re both enjoying the tour.
We’re definitely enjoying our tour – weird, wonderful and strange – loving Bulgaria..
Hard to get one’s head around such a perfectly preserved skeleton and beautiful gold from 7000 years ago. Must be a bit breathtaking to see it up close and personal. But – doesn’t the skeleton seem to be rather oddly arranged??
Well, there was a fair bit in the museum about corpse placement ( a possibly technical term) – focused on gender ( lying flat or on the side) and direction ( north by north east) – I think the partrician’s body and even feet seem mostly right but the hand and sceptre, not so much. You can tell I’m really concentrating….
The Goddess of the Lake looks blissed-out. Do you imagine she wore multiple studs and earrings?
Yes, yes, yes – of course she did! Studs and possibly narcotics…
What marvellous teeth that skeleton has! I’m blown away by the quality of the goldwork, especially the gold and crystal ceremonial axe. I’m sure those ancient beings knew a thing or two about the afterlife…
I’m sure they did – there’s something very otherworldly about this ancient gold work …
Lovely stuff. Am afraid a glorious gold hoard from around the same time is currently languishing in an (amazing) exhibition in the British Museum. It’s the Panagyurishti hoard. You’ll have to see the exhibition when you get back! Stunning gold work
Definitely something to look forward to – this gold is extraordinary and oddly moving