site.btaValuable Gold, Silver Artifacts from National History Museum on Display at Albena Resort

Valuable gold and silver artifacts from the collections of the National History Museum (NHM) are on display at the Maritim Paradise Hotel in the Albena Black Sea resort as part of the museum's exhibition "Stories in Gold and Silver", which opened on Tuesday. The exhibition will remain open to visitors until August 20.

Speaking at the opening, NHM Director Assoc. Prof. Boni Petrunova said the exhibition is an original museum project that has already toured several Bulgarian cities and generated considerable public interest.

The exhibition features 61 gold and silver artifacts. "The concept is not only to display valuable exhibits, but also to tell the story of some of the most significant treasures discovered on the territory of present-day Bulgaria," Petrunova said.

She noted that the exhibits are arranged chronologically, from the earliest archaeological finds to the Bulgarian National Revival period. One section is dedicated to the Varna Chalcolithic Necropolis and the finds from Grave No. 43, which testify to the earliest known gold processing in the world. The exhibition also includes artifacts from Thracian culture, among them the treasure of a Thracian princess and priestess from a burial mound near Sinemorets, the original gold plaque from a diadem bearing a Greek inscription, and the Preslav Treasure.

Among the highlights is the only exact replica of the famous Nagyszentmiklos Treasure, whose original is housed at the Museum of Art History in Vienna.

Petrunova also said that a 14th-century jade belt fitting discovered during archaeological excavations at Cape Kaliakra is among the artifacts being considered for inclusion in a future exhibition in China.

Albena AD Executive Director Krasimir Stanev expressed hope that the exhibition will attract both Bulgarian and foreign tourists. He said Bulgaria deserves a major museum dedicated to Thracian civilization, adding that the gold artifacts crafted by the local population that inhabited the territory of present-day Bulgaria demonstrate the country's rich gold heritage.