Bulgarians Unearth Cache of Elaborate Ancient Goldwork At Thracian Site
[Discover, January 2006]

By RICHARD MORGAN

A string of spectacular discoveries among burial mounds in Bulgaria is rewriting the early history of goldworking in Europe. The Thracians, who lived in what is now Bulgaria, northern Greece, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, and Turkey between 4,000 B.C. and A.D. 800, were long known as early masters of metalwork. But the recent finds, unveiled last summer, show unexpected technical expertise. The caliber and abundance of the finely wrought work suggest the region was a center for gold processing and export in ancient Europe.

In Dabene, a village 80 miles east of the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, a team uncovered a cache of more than 15,000 small gold artifacts, including thousands of rings so meticulously crafted that the seams are invisible to the eye. Teams working in other sites have turned up even more treasure. Among the thousands of artifacts are detailed rings, wreaths, drinking vessels, and armor of gold and silver. An investigation in August 2004 uncovered a 2,400-year-old 23.5-karat solid gold ritual burial mask weighing 672 grams, the first such found (most have only gold-leaf covering).

Valeria Fol, a professor of ancient history and culture at the Institute of Thracology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, says the site where the mask was found is intriguing. "The burial itself is incredibly interesting not only because of the golden mask but also because the corpse of the person buried was cut with an ax," Fol said.

"Only parts of the body were buried in the tomb, and they were put in their correct anatomic place. The golden mask was put in the place of the head, which is missing." Such detailed arrangement is proof, Fol said, that Thracians' burial rites, like their technological skills, were complicated. "In this aristocratic society, the king-priest was clearly very important," says Christopher Webber, the author of The Thracians: 700 B.C.–A.D. 46, who has studied the findings. The dead king may have been Seuthes III. His name doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. But neither does Tutankhamen.

 

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