Golden artifacts from Ada Tepe mine are exhibiting in Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna

An unique exhibition, hosting golden artifacts from 15 Bulgarian museums, will be shown in the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Museum of art history) in Vienna. It is named “The First Gold. Ada Tepe: Europe’s Oldest Gold Mine” and presents in public for the first time.

The Ada Tepe hill, located nearby the town of Krumovgrad in Bulgaria and often called The Golden Island, defines from the archaeologists as the oldest golden mine in Europe. The place has been dug from the inhabitants on the Bulgarian lands 3000 years ago and has been used for centuries.

Among the displayed artifacts

are golden adornments and potteries, silver trimmings, bronze tools and arms. The exhibition aims to present the formation and development of gold extraction and machining on Bulgarian lands.

The Valchitran Treasure takes the central place in the show. The hoard includes around 12,5 kilograms golden objects. It is a symbol of the wealth and the technical skills of the age. Marvellous feats produced in the late Classical/Hellenistic period and during the Roman Empire

document the importance of Bulgarian gold, which can look back on 3500 years of history.

The exhibition is organized by the Kunsthistorisches Museum in collaboration with the National Archaeological Institute with Museum, Academy of Sciences, Sofia (NAIM) and the Institute of Oriental and European Archaeology (OREA) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.