Greetings, fellow gold bugs and ancient art appreciators!
Can you imagine being dubbed a poor country among your peers while at the same time being robbed, legally, of tons and tons of gold annually? It's still a thing. But I am only throwing this notion here as a background. My intention is to tell no longer of corruption and treason, but of history and treasures.
They are a thing, too, not only myths. I wonder how the actual discoverers felt. Unsung of and not rewarded heroes, perhaps. Gold is shrouded in so much mysticism that sometimes it feels unreal when you finally face the objects of national history lessons from your childhood.
It can be hard to accept it's real.
It also poses an interesting question. A mnemonic exercise at thinking of previously observed instances of concentrated value. Have I seen so much material worth in one place? What is this worth? Questions that shall, for now, remain unanswered.
These are my amateurish photographs of the nine objects that constitute the Panagyurishte Golden Treasure, found near the town with that same name a bit over half a century ago.
It's one of Bulgaria's most famous archaeological finds.
It's about two thousand and five hundred years old.
It weighs more than six kilos in total.
That makes it a bout a thousand times more valuable than other instances of me seeing any collections of gold, excluding an Arabian wedding I once photographed. If we count that, it would only be hundredfold.
What I am about to share is a mix of Thracian and Hellenic culture.
I shall say no more...
Thracian rulers and their burials...
There were more than a few mounds that we drove by while exploring the region these past few days. Visited the insides of one of them, even.
A random historical fact — The Roman, The Byzantine, and the Ottoman Empires have all been here after the treasure was buried and they left without digging it out. It's only shortly after WWII that it surfaced...but...with some help.
Peace and Nuggets!
Yours,
Manol