The secret of Bulgaria's golden treasures: Archaeologists have found the oldest treasure in the world

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The oldest processed gold on Earth has caused a sensation in the scientific community. After all, they found it not in the Middle East, where the ancient Sumerians lived, not in Egypt and not even in the burials of pre-Columbian America. The treasures were found in northeastern Bulgaria near Varna. This find even allowed a number of European scientists to suggest that the Varna culture should be considered the very first European civilization. The radiocarbon analysis of the burials made by modern researchers confirmed the antiquity of the Bulgarian gold.

Gold was discovered by accident

The Varna gold treasure from the late Chalcolithic period (V millennium BC) is today the most likely contender for the title "The oldest gold in the world processed by man." In fairness, it should be noted that several prehistoric Bulgarian finds are considered no less old - the golden treasures of Hotnitsa, Durankulak, artifacts from the Kurgan settlement of Yunatsite near Pazardzhik, the golden treasure Sakar, as well as beads and gold jewelry found in the Kurgan settlement of Provadia - Solnitsata (“salt pit "). However, Varna gold is most often called the oldest, since this treasure is the largest and most diverse.

All these treasures are the product of the first human civilization in Europe, which developed during the Neolithic and Chalcolithic eras in the territory of modern Bulgaria, as well as in the rest of the Balkan Peninsula, in the Lower Danube region and on the western coast of the Black Sea.

The Varna gold treasure was accidentally discovered back in the 1970s - during the construction of a cannery. The excavator driver Raikho Marinov, who was then 22 years old, came across several artifacts, collected them in a shoebox and took them home, and a couple of days later he reported this to local archaeologists. Later, for his discovery, the worker was awarded a prize of 500 Bulgarian levs - a sum rather large at that time and equal to several monthly salaries. By the way, the secret services of socialist Bulgaria for some time followed the man to make sure that he did not leave any artifacts for himself for sale.

Several years ago, the Varna Treasures were exhibited at the EU Parliament in Brussels, and Marinov was invited there as a special guest - four decades after he accidentally discovered the world's oldest processed gold.

For many years of study of the necropolis, about three hundred Chalcolithic graves have been discovered there, and about 30% of the supposed territory of the necropolis has yet to be excavated. Gold artifacts have been found in graves with skeletons (mostly male), as well as in symbolic graves without human remains.

Radiocarbon analysis of the remains made in recent years has confirmed the assumptions of scientists - Chalcolithic graves do contain the oldest gold treasures - they date back to 4560-450 BC.

What gold talks about

Finds from the necropolis indicate that the Varna culture had trade links with the remote Black Sea and Mediterranean regions. Most likely, she exported rock salt from the Provadia-Solnitsata mine. And the shells of the Mediterranean mollusk Spondylus, found in graves in the Varna necropolis and at other Chalcolithic sites in Northern Bulgaria, may have been used as currency.

Among the finds confirming the greatness of the ancient civilization of Varna are the golden boomerang (and it was traditionally believed that the Australians were the first to use it) and pottery, covered with gold paint and at the same time fired in a kiln.

Also, the attention of scientists was attracted by two golden figurines of a bull, which were the standard of measure of length. These artifacts have a golden section code (Leonardo da Vinci himself worked on it at one time), which exactly correlates with the number Pi. And it, as the Bulgarian researchers explain, multiplied by the known Fibonacci number, gives the angle of the base of the Cheops pyramid.

- The sacred measure of ancient Egypt is the so-called sacred cubit, and its prototype, equal to 52 cm, comes from ancient Varna. It's just incredible! - note the researchers.

There is another surprising coincidence. Along the outer perimeter of the famous Stonehenge in England, there are 56 round holes, which in the scientific world are known as "Orby holes" (in honor of their explorer). So exactly 56 convex points can be counted along the contour of a large golden bull amulet found among the treasures in Bulgaria.

Wealth of ancient tombs

The golden treasure of Varna includes more than 3000 gold artifacts classified in 28 different types with a total weight of 6.5 kilograms, more than 5 kilograms of which were found in a total of three symbolic burials, as well as in grave No. 43, containing a human skeleton, which could be the ruler or the chief priest. The remains belong to a man of 40-45 years old, who had a very impressive physique for that time - he was a strong man with a height of 1.75 meters.

The gold items buried with him include 10 large appliqués, a large number of rings, some of which were on laces, two necklaces, an item considered a golden phallus, beads, gold bows, stone and copper axes with gold decorations, and bow with gold complements.

The burial inventory also includes a large number of copper artifacts - in addition to the ax described above, there is also a nail-hammer, a chisel and a copper awl. There are also artifacts of stone, silicon, seashell, bone products, as well as Spondylus clam bracelets and 11 luxuriously decorated ceramic vessels. Such a rich content of the grave allowed scientists to conclude that a person of a very high title was buried here.

In one of the graves containing gold of a later period, a bracelet of gold cylinders with a cord was discovered, and it is considered to be the oldest gold artifact in the world, created by human hands.

And in burial No. 36 (a symbolic grave), archaeologists discovered more than 850 gold objects - a tiara, earrings, a necklace, a breastplate, bracelets, a belt, a golden hammer-scepter, a sickle model, two gold plates depicting animals, 30 models of horned animal heads. The artifacts were covered with gold-embroidered cloth. Gold pieces outlined the contours of the human body, with lots of expensive jewelry on the right side. According to the researchers, this means that the funeral of a man who had royal insignia took place. Similar "royal" burials were also found in graves 1, 4 and 5.

Another type of grave in the necropolis contains clay masks of human faces, where the eyes, mouths, teeth and noses are made of gold. Unlike the burials described above containing blacksmith's tools, the burials with masks contain clay vases, cups and needles. That is why they are interpreted as a female funeral depicting the mother goddess.

The proximity of female symbolic graves No. 2, 3 and 15 with the symbolic royal graves No. 1, 4 and 5 is interpreted as ritual representations of sacred marriages between the king and the mother goddess. These six burials are believed by experts to have been the core of the Chalcolithic necropolis in Bulgarian Varna and preceded the rest of the burials.

By the way, most of the finds from the Varna Chalcolithic necropolis are seen as an exaltation of the role of a blacksmith, which scientists interpret as a substitute for the role of the Great Mother Goddess. In their opinion, this indicates the transformation of the matriarchal world into a patriarchal one. The position of the master of blacksmithing in the culture of the Eneolithic era can be compared with the position of the king, because in those days the metal was precisely a symbol of high status, and not economic superiority.

And also archaeologists have found in Bulgaria cannonballs of Dracula's army.