site.btaNine Exquisite Objects from Two Treasures from Vratsa Regional History Museum Part of Ancient Thrace Getty Museum Exhibition

Nine exquisitely made objects from two Thracian treasures at the Vratsa Regional Museum of History are participating in an upcoming exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California, the museum’s Director, Georgi Ganetsovski, told BTA. The Ancient Thrace and the Classical World: Treasures from Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece exhibition features more than 150 artefacts. It will be on between November 3 and March 3, 2025. These are among the most impressive exhibits from the Mogilanska Mogila and the Rogozen Treasure that show a virtuoso Thracian craftsmanship, which was at levels that even modern master jewelers can hardly achieve, he added. No major prestigious overseas exposition presenting the Bulgarian cultural and archaeological heritage is held without the participation of Vratsa Museum of History, he pointed out.  

Visitors will be able to see a total of nine vessels. Two are from the treasure found at the Mogilanska mound in Vratsa and seven are from the Rogozen treasure. A magnificent silver greave with gilding, which is unparalleled in the world, and a golden jug with depicted chariots were selected from the Vratsa treasure. 

The entire treasure was discovered by Bogdan Nikolov in 1965-1966.  Builders stumbled upon it by accident while digging a trench for a residential building. They came across a stone structure and artefacts dating back to the Thracian period. They discovered three stone tombs that had been destroyed over time. They found a chariot, equine remains, human remains with the famous laurel wreath on the head, from which the proverbial title "Thracian Princess of Vratsa" derives, and the magnificent greave. The number of finds from the three tombs exceeds 130.  There are gold and silver objects, silver vessels, the golden chariot jar, gold appliqués, as well as stone and ceramic objects. The treasure has been dated to the 4th century BC. It probably belonged to a local dynastic house of a Thracian Triballi tribe ruler, the whereabouts of whose residence is still unclear, but it is somewhere in the area, given this magnificent burial mound.

The other seven items are from the Rogozen hoard, all silver with gilding.  Selections include the emblematic phiale with Augeas and Heracles, which amazes with the incredible craftsmanship of Thracian jewellery - this extremely high relief, the workmanship of which to this day has no explanation of how it was achieved. In the exhibition are included a perfect jug, occupying in principle the central part of the exposition at the Vratsa Museum of History and featuring the Mother Goddess riding a lioness. There is another silver jug depicting the Mother Goddess on a chariot, three phials from the collection with inscriptions and one phial with a griffin. 

In total, the Rogozen treasure includes 165 vessels made of silver and decorated with gilding.  The first part of it was discovered in 1986 by Ivan Dimitrov during an excavation for a water pipeline. He retrieved a total of 65 silver vessels without even realizing what they were. Months later, during rescue excavations, archaeologists from the Vratsa Museum found another 100 vessels - jugs, phials, silver cups, some with gilding, some with magnificent hammered images from Thracian and Greek mythology, there are also those with engraved inscriptions in Greek. Some of the vessels were made south of the Balkan Mountains and arrived here either as gifts or as booty. There are even a few vessels from ancient Hellas, as they were made by casting. The Thracians used only forging in making the vessels, which is an extremely precise and complex technique. 

Taking a question what distinguishes the Vratsa Museum from the other ones across the country, Ganetsovski answered that it had turned 70 in 2023 as a state museum institution and has been established as a leading regional one in Bulgaria for many years for a number of reasons. 

The building was built specifically for a museum and was completed in 1980.  The museum also has two ethnographic National Revival complexes. One is St. Sophronius of Vratsa, which includes an entire neighborhood, with three period houses, a National Revival school, an exposition of traditional means of transport, and an Ascension of Our Lord church. The other is named after revolutionary Nikola Voyvodov, with two houses with expositions in them, he explained.

Some of the expositions in the main building are without analogue in Bulgaria.  These are the Rogozen Treasure Hall, the innovative Thracian Treasures Hall, which houses four treasures presented in a very interesting way, also for the first time in Bulgaria. The hall was renovated and opened in 2023 and is an exceptional rarity for a provincial museum. We also have the First N-plant Hall (referring to Kozloduy N-plant nearby), the Paper Museum, the Botev Hall (dedicated to revolutionary and poet Hristo Botev).

The museum also has "The World of the Child" and "Traditional Means of Transport" exhibitions, the latter dedicated to prominent Vratsa entrepreneur Mito Orozov.  We also offer a new service to the exposition "Traditional viticulture and viticulture of Vratsa region and the Northwest" - tasting of wines from this region.

The number of active expositions in the central building totals 14. Vratsa Regional Museum has about 130,000 movable cultural valuables, with some exhibited while others are stored in its depositories.