One of the oldest gold treasures in the world, unearthed at the Varna Necropolis on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast, is attracting enormous attention at a New York exhibition.
The treasures form part of an exhibition "The Lost World of Old Europe: The Danube valley, 5 000 – 3 500 BC", currently on display at the New York University Institute for the Study of the Ancient World.
Valentin Pletnyov, Director of the Regional History Museum in Varna, has announced at a recent press conference that the exhibits were attracting great public attention. Over 200 people had attended the opening of the exhibition, on November 11, he added.
As well the gold artifacts from Varna, the exhibition is showing a total of 2 000 objects, including ancient treasures from Romania and Moldova, on the northern banks of the Danube.
"The exhibition, arranged through loan agreements with 20 museums in three countries (Romania, The Republic of Bulgaria and the Republic of Moldova), brings the exuberant art, enigmatic goddess cults, and precocious metal ornaments and weapons of Old Europe to American audiences," according to the official announcement of New York University’s Institute.
In addition to the display of the artifacts, there are several film screenings, lectures and a musical performance scheduled as part of the exhibition, which continues until April 25, 2010.
The site was accidentally discovered in October 1972 by excavator operator Raycho Marinov. Research excavation was under the direction of Mihail Lazarov (1972-1976) and Ivan Ivanov (1972-1991). About 30% of the estimated necropolis area has still not been excavated.
To date, 294 graves have been found in the necropolis, many containing sophisticated examples of gold, copper and pottery artifacts. The site is acknowledged to be one of the key archaeological sites in world prehistory.
Author: dzingis, 23 Nov 2009 17:52:20
Bulgaria Archaeological Gold Treasures Dazzle New Yorkers
Were any writings found at this excavation sites? I'm curious what was the old Thracian language like, more like Albanian, Romanian or Greek..
Author: BULERICAN, 23 Nov 2009 20:18:36
Bulgaria Archaeological Gold Treasures Dazzle New Yorkers
Author: dzingis, 23 Nov 2009 17:52:20
Bulgaria Archaeological Gold Treasures Dazzle New Yorkers
Were any writings found at this excavation sites? I'm curious what was the old Thracian language like, more like Albanian, Romanian or Greek..
DZINGIS,
I would offer that the Albanian, Romanian or Greek language(s) might be like Thracian, considering that the Thracian culture preceeded the others.
Author: DrFaust, 23 Nov 2009 20:41:39
Bulgaria Archaeological Gold Treasures Dazzle New Yorkers
Bulerican,
the Gold Treasures shown in this exhibition are clearly pre-Thracian and belong to a culture that was already destroyed when the Thracians appeared.
Besides, the Thracians didn't leave writings except for a very few short inscriptions (names etc.) from which scientists so far couldn't get a clear idea about the Tharacian language. Most scientists assume that it was closely related to the Illyrian language. In that case Thracian would be closest to Albanian language. Romanian language is derived from Latin and has nothing to do with the Thracians.
Author: Honterus, 23 Nov 2009 21:05:10
Bulgaria Archaeological Gold Treasures Dazzle New Yorkers
Dr Faust:
"Romanian language is derived from Latin and has nothing to do with the Thracians."
This is essentialy true but there are several dozens of Romanian words who cognates in Albanian:
"About 300 words found only in Romanian or with a cognate in the Albanian language may be inherited from Dacian(for example: copil "child" . balaur "dragon", brânză "cheese", mal "shore"). Some linguists have asserted that Albanians are Dacians who were not romanized and migrated southward" - apud Wikipedia
Others claim that Dacian, Ilyrian and Thracian were closely related languages forming a language or dialect continuum ( much like the South Slavic dialect continuum going from Bulgarian in the SE to Slovenian in the NW). Again , some other historians/linguists claim that the Romanians lived until the X-th century in the vicinity of the Albanians and migrated lately where they are now.
Author: DrFaust, 23 Nov 2009 21:21:10
Bulgaria Archaeological Gold Treasures Dazzle New Yorkers
Honterus,
I know about that theory, but the examples you mention don't sound very convincing to me. 'Child' in Albanian is 'femije', 'cheese' is 'djathi', and also the other words you mention are not exisiting in contemporary Albanian as far as my knowledge goes.
Author: Honterus, 23 Nov 2009 21:39:11
Bulgaria Archaeological Gold Treasures Dazzle New Yorkers
