Varna Museum of Archeology
Varna Museum of Archeology
The Archaeological Museum in Varna is housed in the magnificent building, which is designed by the Bulgarian architect Petko Momchilov.
Today it keeps over 55,000 exhibits.
They date from the Paleolithic era (the Old Stone Age) to the late Middle ages.
The first exhibits making up the two main departments - Art and Archeology were entered in the depository of the museum in 1888 when a group of teachers lead by Karel Shkorpil laid the beginning of the museum collection.
The visitors can see extremely valuable exhibit linked with the ancient Thracian culture, Slav and Proto-Bulgarian pottery, jewelry from the Middle Ages and others.
The museum has a rich collection of tomb stones that any European museum would be proud to possess.
The collection of icons include some masterpieces of icon painting from the National revival period in Northeastern Bulgaria the oldest of which date back to the 16th century.
The most beautiful pieces from the rich collection of antique gold decorations belonging to the Museum are exhibited here.
They were discovered in Odessos (ancient Varna), the surroundings and in the antique Marcianopolis.
This fact makes them significant proofs for the aesthetic ideas and the material welfare of the population of this region throughout the Antiquity.
During the whole period of its existence which is more than 120 years the Varna Archaeological Museum has constantly carried out archaeological investigations and excavations on various sites all over Northeast Bulgaria thus enriching its funds.
They now compose the Museum exhibition. The Varna Archaeological Museum keeps more than 100 000 objects – monuments of past epochs from Varna, the Region and Northeast Bulgaria. The most important of them /one tenth of the whole Museum collection/ are represented in the Museum exhibition halls.
Varna Archeological Museum hosts a special exposition of nine selected Tracian treasures.
