Description of the attraction
The Archaeological Museum of the city of Burgas is a branch of the Regional City History Museum, which also includes the Ethnographic and Natural Science Museums. The Archaeological Museum is located in the premises of the former women's gymnasium. The building was built in 1894, the author of the architectural project is the Swiss Herman Mayer, who mainly worked on projects for bank buildings in Plovdiv, Ruse and Sofia.
The exposition of the museum contains items indicating the existence of prehistoric settlements (approximately IV-V centuries BC), as well as various items related to the Roman Empire, ancient Thracian cities, Greek colonies on the Black Sea.
The oldest finds are tools made of stone, flint and bone from the Neolithic and Eneolithic times. All this was found by scientists in the burial mounds. In addition, settlements of the Bronze Age era (about the 3rd century BC) were found in the Burgas Bay, now sunken. An interesting find was the many stone anchors from small to gigantic - they testify to the fact that navigation in the bay was developed in the early era.
Not far from the modern naval base in the south of Burgas was the ancient settlement of Antiy, where a statue of Apollo was found, also brought to the Archaeological Museum.
The third hall of the museum contains the most interesting exhibits. Here we are talking about the Thracian cults during the period of Roman rule in Thrace, this refers to the period from the 1st to the 3rd century. In the burial mound, various ritual figurines made of clay were found; there is also the burial of the Thracian priestess Lesekepra. The museum's collection also includes marble reliefs and figurines of deities, in the first place among which is the Thracian horseman.
In the museum, you can also see coins, ceramics and jewelry that were found 18 km from the city, in the area of the modern village of Debelt, where the ruins of Deultum, an ancient city, used to be.
In addition to the internal one, the museum also has an external exposition. It is worth noting the unique Thracian dolmen tomb (XIII century BC) as the most valuable museum piece. The guests of the museum are also invited to view the tombstones and memorial steles made of marble associated with the peoples that lived in these parts from the 17th to the 20th centuries: Bulgarians, Jews, Turks, Armenians, Greeks.
