Three exceptionally rare artifacts from the Ancient Nessebar Museum are some of the exhibits from 14 Bulgarian museums to be displayed in the upcoming exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California. The Ancient Thrace and the Classical World: Treasures from Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece exhibition features more than 150 artifacts. It will be on between November 3 and March 3, 2025.
The treasured objects provided by the Ancient Nessebar Museum for the exhibition in the United States illustrate the rich cultural heritage of the town in the Antiquity period and the symbiosis with the surrounding Thracians. The town was then called Mesembria, the old Thracian name for present-day Nessebar.
Todor Marvakov, Director of the Ancient Nessebar Museum, tells BTA's Galya Teneva more about the exhibits, their significance and value.
The three exhibits are a marble tombstone of Julia-Hecate from the 2nd century with a very interesting inscription, a marble tablet dating back to the 4th century BC with a dedication to Cybele, and a ceramic sima with decorations of ancient houses and various images on them.
The first and most interesting monument is the tombstone of Julia-Hecate, which mentions the town's history and origin. It is inscribed: "My homeland is called Mesambria, from 'Melsa' and 'Bria'." This points to the origin of the name Mesambria, which means "a town of Melsa". "Bria" is the Thracian word for town, while Melsa is the name of the Thracian founder of the town. The slab is rather big, around 1.3-1.4 metres. Special safety measures were taken during transportation, said Marvakov.
The slab is high and narrow, made of marble and ending at the upper end with a triangular pediment. It is divided into two relief fields. The upper one depicts the deceased young woman, Julia, who is dressed in a long robe and holds lit torches in both hands. The lower field features an image of the deceased seated in a two-wheel chariot holding two torches, accompanied by her servants. Julia is represented as Hecate, the goddess of the underworld, making her way to Hades. According to the Greek inscription on the slab, the deceased was Julia, daughter of Nikios.
The other exhibit submitted for the US exhibition is a marble tablet dating from the 4th century BC with a dedication to Cybele, a goddess popular among both Greeks and Thracians. It is a rectangular marble slab with four lines inscribed in Greek with a dedication to the goddess on behalf of a prominent citizen of Mesambria. It is evidence of the spread of the cult of Cybele in Mesambria.
A clay sima decoration of ancient houses with various decorative designs will also be on display in all its glory at the Los Angeles exhibition. Most likely, these simas were made locally in Mesambria, and that is why they were the hallmark of the city in Antiquity, Marvakov explained, adding that the period in question was the second quarter of the 4th century BC.
The sima is made of light brown, well-purified clay. The sima consists of a front plate and a flat base. The frontal slab represents in relief a half-palmette, a satyr's head, a palmette, a nymph's head and again a half palmette. A meander in relief lies at the base of the sima. There are traces of colouring of the images with red, yellow and blue paint.
The exhibits are priceless. They are interesting, unique and extremely rare, Marvakov said, adding that the objects show interesting things about the history of the Bulgarian lands.
All three artifacts are from the Nessebar region. Two of them were discovered by archaeologists during excavations: the tablet of Cybele in the 1960s and the architectural terracotta during archaeological works in 2010 in the Old Town.
Only the tombstone is a chance find, but again from the Nessebar area. "Trust me, there are not many other, or similar, ancient objects, that is why they aroused the interest of the organizers of the exhibition," said Marvakov.
Nessebar is one of Europe's oldest towns, established more than 3,200 years ago. It was inhabited by various ethnic groups, with different lifestyles and cultures. The town's name also changed. Thracians and Greeks called it Mesambria, the Romans and the Byzantines called it Mesembria. It was known as Nessebar during the Middle Ages - the name which has remained unchanged to this day.
The Old Town is located on a small peninsula 850 m long. The earliest traces of habitation on the peninsula are associated with a settlement of Thracian tribes and date back to the 8th-7th centuries BC.
The Ancient Nessebar Museum is in the Old Town. The museum is a municipal cultural institute with three departments: archaeology, ethnography and a tour guide service. It comprises the Archaeological Museum, the Ethnographic Museum and five ancient churches.
The Archaeological Museum of Nessebar was established in 1956 and its first exhibition was staged in St John the Baptist church. In 1994, the museum moved to a new building designed specifically for it by the architect Hristo Koev. An exhibition "Nessebar Through the Centuries" was put on there, which presents numerous cultural monuments. Archaeological research and excavations on the Nessebar peninsula and the town area in the last forty years have discovered exceptional finds illustrating the history of ancient Mesambria and medieval Nessebar. A worthy place is occupied by the diploma certifying the inscription of the Old Nessebar on the List of World Heritage Sites at the 7th Session of the World Heritage Committee held in Florence, Italy, on December 9, 1983.
The Ancient Nessebar Museum is one of the 100 National Tourist Sites.
Some of the museum's unique artifacts are an extremely important inscription decree in honour of the Thracian leader Sadalas, dating back to the 3rd century BC, which provides a wealth of information about the relations of the Greek polis with the neighbouring Thracians, as well as a silver treasure of tetradrachm coins, which adds to the information about the role of the local Thracian population in the political and economic life of the city in the past.
During archaeological excavations on the northern coast of the peninsula in 2013, the team of Assoc. Prof. Anelia Bozkova and Petya Kiyashkina discovered a votive relief of a Thracian horseman. The relief depicts a rider moving to the right with a flowing cloak. His horse has raised its front left leg in the direction of a stone altar and a tree around which a snake is coiled. Experts suggest that the relief was made around the 2nd century. It is evidence of the cult of the Thracian Heros, which existed on the territory of ancient Mesambria during the Roman era. Similar ancient reliefs have been found in the lands of Sveti Vlas, Kosharitsa and Goritsa villages, Nessebar Municipality, but this is the first discovery of such an artifact within the ancient city itself.
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