Varna Necropolis
Encyclopedia
The Varna Necropolis (also Varna Cemetery) is a burial site in the western industrial zone of Varna
(approximately half a kilometre from Lake Varna
and 4 km from the city centre), Bulgaria
, internationally considered one of the key archaeological sites in world prehistory. The oldest gold
en treasure in the world, dating to 5,000 BC, was discovered at the site.
by excavator operator Raycho Marinov. Research excavation was under the direction of Mihail Lazarov (1972–1976) and Ivan Ivanov (1972–1991). About 30% of estimated necropolis
area is still not excavated.
A total of 294 graves have been found in the necropolis, many containing sophisticated examples of metallurgy
(gold and copper), pottery
(about 600 pieces, including gold-painted ones), high-quality flint and obsidian blades, beads, and shells.
in 2004 and belong to the Eneolithic Varna culture
, which is the local variant of the KGKVI.
There are crouched and extended inhumations. Some graves do not contain a skeleton, but grave gifts (cenotaph
s). These symbolic (empty) graves are the richest in gold artifacts. Three thousand gold artifacts were found, with a weight of approximately six kilograms. Grave 43 contained more gold than has been found in the entire rest of the world for that epoch. Three symbolic graves contained masks of unfired clay..
The findings showed that the Varna culture had trade relations with distant lands (possibly including the lower Volga and the Cyclades
), perhaps exporting metal goods and salt from the Provadiya
rock salt mine
http://www.iianthropology.org/saltprehieurasia.html. The copper ore used in the artifacts originated from a Sredna Gora
mine near Stara Zagora
, and Mediterranean Spondylus
shells found in the graves may have served as primitive currency.
The culture had sophisticated religious beliefs about afterlife and developed hierarchal status differences: it offers the oldest known burial evidence of an elite male (the end of the fifth millennium BC is the time that Marija Gimbutas
claims the transition to male dominance began in Europe). The high status male buried with the most remarkable amount of gold held a war adze or mace and wore a gold penis sheath. The bull-shaped gold platelets perhaps also venerated virility, instinctional force, and warfare. Gimbutas holds that the artifacts were made largely by local craftspeople.
, Karanovo
, Vinča
and Lengyel
cultures in their main territories and the large scale population shifts to the north and northwest are indirect evidence of a catastrophe of such proportions that cannot be explained by possible climatic change, land exhaustion, or epidemics (for which there is no evidence in the second half of the 5th millennium B.C.). Direct evidence of the incursion of horse-riding warriors is found, not only in single burials of males under barrows, but in the emergence of a whole complex of Kurgan
cultural traits."
According to J. Chapman (2005), "Once upon a time, not so very long ago, it was widely accepted that steppe nomads from the North Pontic zone invaded the Balkans, putting an end to the Climax Copper Age society that produced the apogee of tell living, autonomous copper metallurgy and, as the grandest climax, the Varna cemetery with its stunning early goldwork. Now the boot is very much on the other foot and it is the Varna complex and its associated communities that are held responsible for stimulating the onset of prestige goods-dominated steppe mortuary practice following the expansion of farming."
Among the metallic (gold and copper) and non-metallic (minerals, rocks, pottery, pigments, bioobjects) artefacts in the graves from the Varna Chalcolithic site are numerous beads of a chalcedony (carnelian) and agate composition. Three main morphological types of beads are described: type 1 – elongated barrel-shaped; type 2 – elongated with trapezohedral facets; type 3 – short cylindrical (Kostov, 2007; Kostov, Pelevina, 2008). The carnelian and related beads of type 2 have a “constant” number of 32 facets – 16+16 on both sides on the elongation of the bead, which is considered probably the earliest in Chalcolithic times complex type of faceting on such a hard mineral (hardness of chalcedony is 6.5-7 on the Mohs scale). In the hole of a single carnelian bead was found a gold mini-cylinder (~2x2 mm). The gold artefacts from the Varna Chalcolithic necropolis are assumed to be the “oldest gold of mankind” according to their total volume and quantity. Analysis of the measured weight of the different types of gold artеfacts (beads, appliqués, rings, bracelets, pectorals and diadems) revealed a weight system with at least two minimal weight units of ~0.14 and ~0.40 g among both mineral and gold beads (Kostov, 2004; 2007). The second one (=2 carats) was suggested as a basic “Chalcolithic unit” with the name van (from the first letters of Varna necropolis).
In 2009, logician H. Smolenov suggested that the Varna culture people had achieved certain advanced mathematical knowledge testified by the artifacts from the necropolis, some of which might have been used for navigation purposes apart from their possible sacral function.
The artifacts can be seen at the Varna Archaeological Museum
and at the National Historical Museum
in Sofia. In 2006, some gold objects were included in a major and broadly advertised national exhibition of antique gold treasures in both Sofia and Varna.
The gold of Varna started touring the world in 1973; it was included in "The Gold of the Thracian Horseman" national exhibition, shown at many of the world's leading museums and exhibition venues in the 1970s. In 1982, it was exhibited for 7 months in Japan as "The Oldest Gold in the World - The First European Civilization" with massive publicity, including two full length TV documentaries. In the 1980s and 1990s it was also shown in Canada, Germany, France, Italy, and Israel, among others, and featured in a cover story by the National Geographic Magazine
.
Varna necropolis artifacts were shown for the first time in the United States in 1998 and 1999 as part of a major Bulgarian archaeological exhibition, Thracians' Riches: Treasures from Bulgaria. In 2009-2010, several artifacts were shown at the New York University
Institute for the Study of the Ancient World in a joint Romanian-Bulgarian-Moldovan exhibition entitled The Lost World of Old Europe: The Danube Valley, 5000-3500 BC.
Varna
Varna is the largest city and seaside resort on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast and third-largest in Bulgaria after Sofia and Plovdiv, with a population of 334,870 inhabitants according to Census 2011...
(approximately half a kilometre from Lake Varna
Lake Varna
Lake Varna is the largest by volume and deepest liman or lake along the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast, divided from the sea by a 2 km-wide strip of sand and having an area of 17 km², maximal depth 19 m, and a volume of 166 million m³....
and 4 km from the city centre), Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
, internationally considered one of the key archaeological sites in world prehistory. The oldest gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
en treasure in the world, dating to 5,000 BC, was discovered at the site.
Discovery and excavation
The site was accidentally discovered in October 19721972 in archaeology
The year 1972 in archaeology involved some significant events.-Excavations:* National Institute of Anthropology and History excavations at Maya site of Coba begin under direction of Carlos Navarrete.* Tell Abu Hureyra, in Syria....
by excavator operator Raycho Marinov. Research excavation was under the direction of Mihail Lazarov (1972–1976) and Ivan Ivanov (1972–1991). About 30% of estimated necropolis
Necropolis
A necropolis is a large cemetery or burial ground, usually including structural tombs. The word comes from the Greek νεκρόπολις - nekropolis, literally meaning "city of the dead"...
area is still not excavated.
A total of 294 graves have been found in the necropolis, many containing sophisticated examples of metallurgy
Metallurgy
Metallurgy is a domain of materials science that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their intermetallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are called alloys. It is also the technology of metals: the way in which science is applied to their practical use...
(gold and copper), pottery
Pottery
Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...
(about 600 pieces, including gold-painted ones), high-quality flint and obsidian blades, beads, and shells.
Chronology
The graves have been dated to 4700-4200 BC by radiocarbon datingRadiocarbon dating
Radiocarbon dating is a radiometric dating method that uses the naturally occurring radioisotope carbon-14 to estimate the age of carbon-bearing materials up to about 58,000 to 62,000 years. Raw, i.e. uncalibrated, radiocarbon ages are usually reported in radiocarbon years "Before Present" ,...
in 2004 and belong to the Eneolithic Varna culture
Varna culture
The Varna culture belongs to the late Eneolithic of northern Bulgaria. It is conventionally dated between 4400-4100 BC cal, that is, contemporary with Karanovo in the South...
, which is the local variant of the KGKVI.
Burial rites
Cenotaph
A cenotaph is an "empty tomb" or a monument erected in honour of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere. It can also be the initial tomb for a person who has since been interred elsewhere. The word derives from the Greek κενοτάφιον = kenotaphion...
s). These symbolic (empty) graves are the richest in gold artifacts. Three thousand gold artifacts were found, with a weight of approximately six kilograms. Grave 43 contained more gold than has been found in the entire rest of the world for that epoch. Three symbolic graves contained masks of unfired clay..
The findings showed that the Varna culture had trade relations with distant lands (possibly including the lower Volga and the Cyclades
Cyclades
The Cyclades is a Greek island group in the Aegean Sea, south-east of the mainland of Greece; and a former administrative prefecture of Greece. They are one of the island groups which constitute the Aegean archipelago. The name refers to the islands around the sacred island of Delos...
), perhaps exporting metal goods and salt from the Provadiya
Provadiya
Provadia is a town in northeastern Bulgaria, part of Varna Province, located in a deep karst gorge along the Provadia River not far from the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Provadiya Municipality. As of December 2009, the town has a population of...
rock salt mine
Salt mine
A salt mine is a mining operation involved in the extraction of rock salt or halite from evaporite deposits.-Occurrence:Areas known for their salt mines include Kilroot near Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland ; Khewra and Warcha in Pakistan; Tuzla in Bosnia; Wieliczka and Bochnia in Poland A salt mine...
http://www.iianthropology.org/saltprehieurasia.html. The copper ore used in the artifacts originated from a Sredna Gora
Sredna Gora
Sredna Gora is a mountain range in central Bulgaria, situated south of and parallel to Balkan mountain range and extending from the river Iskar to the west and the elbow of Tundzha north of Yambol to the east. Sredna Gora is 285 km long, reaching 50 km at its greatest width...
mine near Stara Zagora
Stara Zagora
Stara Zagora is the sixth largest city in Bulgaria, and a nationally important economic center. Located in Southern Bulgaria, it is the administrative capital of the homonymous Stara Zagora Province...
, and Mediterranean Spondylus
Spondylus
Spondylus is a genus of bivalve molluscs, the only genus in the family Spondylidae. As well as being the systematic or scientific name, Spondylus is also the most often used common name for these animals, though they are also known as thorny oysters or spiny oysters.There are many species of...
shells found in the graves may have served as primitive currency.
The culture had sophisticated religious beliefs about afterlife and developed hierarchal status differences: it offers the oldest known burial evidence of an elite male (the end of the fifth millennium BC is the time that Marija Gimbutas
Marija Gimbutas
Marija Gimbutas , was a Lithuanian-American archeologist known for her research into the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of "Old Europe", a term she introduced. Her works published between 1946 and 1971 introduced new views by combining traditional spadework with linguistics and mythological...
claims the transition to male dominance began in Europe). The high status male buried with the most remarkable amount of gold held a war adze or mace and wore a gold penis sheath. The bull-shaped gold platelets perhaps also venerated virility, instinctional force, and warfare. Gimbutas holds that the artifacts were made largely by local craftspeople.
Historical impact
According to M. Gimbutas (1991), "The discontinuity of the VarnaVarna culture
The Varna culture belongs to the late Eneolithic of northern Bulgaria. It is conventionally dated between 4400-4100 BC cal, that is, contemporary with Karanovo in the South...
, Karanovo
Karanovo culture
The Karanovo culture is a neolithic culture named for the Bulgarian village of Karanovo . The site at Karanovo itself was a hilltop settlement of 18 buildings, housing some 100 inhabitants....
, Vinča
Vinca culture
The Vinča culture is a Neolithic archaeological culture in Southeastern Europe, dated to the period 5500–4500 BCE. Named for its type site, Vinča-Belo Brdo, a large tell settlement discovered by Serbian archaeologist Miloje Vasić in 1908, it represents the material remains of a prehistoric society...
and Lengyel
Lengyel culture
The Lengyel culture, is an archaeological culture of the European Neolithic, centered on the Middle Danube in Central Europe. It flourished during ca...
cultures in their main territories and the large scale population shifts to the north and northwest are indirect evidence of a catastrophe of such proportions that cannot be explained by possible climatic change, land exhaustion, or epidemics (for which there is no evidence in the second half of the 5th millennium B.C.). Direct evidence of the incursion of horse-riding warriors is found, not only in single burials of males under barrows, but in the emergence of a whole complex of Kurgan
Kurgan
Kurgan is the Turkic term for a tumulus; mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves, originating with its use in Soviet archaeology, now widely used for tumuli in the context of Eastern European and Central Asian archaeology....
cultural traits."
According to J. Chapman (2005), "Once upon a time, not so very long ago, it was widely accepted that steppe nomads from the North Pontic zone invaded the Balkans, putting an end to the Climax Copper Age society that produced the apogee of tell living, autonomous copper metallurgy and, as the grandest climax, the Varna cemetery with its stunning early goldwork. Now the boot is very much on the other foot and it is the Varna complex and its associated communities that are held responsible for stimulating the onset of prestige goods-dominated steppe mortuary practice following the expansion of farming."
Among the metallic (gold and copper) and non-metallic (minerals, rocks, pottery, pigments, bioobjects) artefacts in the graves from the Varna Chalcolithic site are numerous beads of a chalcedony (carnelian) and agate composition. Three main morphological types of beads are described: type 1 – elongated barrel-shaped; type 2 – elongated with trapezohedral facets; type 3 – short cylindrical (Kostov, 2007; Kostov, Pelevina, 2008). The carnelian and related beads of type 2 have a “constant” number of 32 facets – 16+16 on both sides on the elongation of the bead, which is considered probably the earliest in Chalcolithic times complex type of faceting on such a hard mineral (hardness of chalcedony is 6.5-7 on the Mohs scale). In the hole of a single carnelian bead was found a gold mini-cylinder (~2x2 mm). The gold artefacts from the Varna Chalcolithic necropolis are assumed to be the “oldest gold of mankind” according to their total volume and quantity. Analysis of the measured weight of the different types of gold artеfacts (beads, appliqués, rings, bracelets, pectorals and diadems) revealed a weight system with at least two minimal weight units of ~0.14 and ~0.40 g among both mineral and gold beads (Kostov, 2004; 2007). The second one (=2 carats) was suggested as a basic “Chalcolithic unit” with the name van (from the first letters of Varna necropolis).
In 2009, logician H. Smolenov suggested that the Varna culture people had achieved certain advanced mathematical knowledge testified by the artifacts from the necropolis, some of which might have been used for navigation purposes apart from their possible sacral function.
Museum exhibitions
Varna Archaeological Museum
The Varna Archaeological Museum is an archaeological museum in the city of Varna on the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria.Founded on 3 June 1888, when a museum, part of the City Library was established, the Varna Archaeological Museum is situated in a historic building designed in the Neo-Renaissance...
and at the National Historical Museum
National Historical Museum (Bulgaria)
The National Historical Museum in Sofia is Bulgaria's largest museum. It was founded on 5 May 1973 and its first representative exposition was opened in 1984 to commemorate 1300 years of Bulgarian history...
in Sofia. In 2006, some gold objects were included in a major and broadly advertised national exhibition of antique gold treasures in both Sofia and Varna.
The gold of Varna started touring the world in 1973; it was included in "The Gold of the Thracian Horseman" national exhibition, shown at many of the world's leading museums and exhibition venues in the 1970s. In 1982, it was exhibited for 7 months in Japan as "The Oldest Gold in the World - The First European Civilization" with massive publicity, including two full length TV documentaries. In the 1980s and 1990s it was also shown in Canada, Germany, France, Italy, and Israel, among others, and featured in a cover story by the National Geographic Magazine
National Geographic Magazine
National Geographic, formerly the National Geographic Magazine, is the official journal of the National Geographic Society. It published its first issue in 1888, just nine months after the Society itself was founded...
.
Varna necropolis artifacts were shown for the first time in the United States in 1998 and 1999 as part of a major Bulgarian archaeological exhibition, Thracians' Riches: Treasures from Bulgaria. In 2009-2010, several artifacts were shown at the New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
Institute for the Study of the Ancient World in a joint Romanian-Bulgarian-Moldovan exhibition entitled The Lost World of Old Europe: The Danube Valley, 5000-3500 BC.
