Panagyurishte Treasure

In 1946, in the ceramic factory “Merul” near Panagyurishte, three brothers (Pavel, Petko and Mikhail Deykovi), while digging clay for bricks accidentally discovered the golden vessels. They thought they had discovered musical instruments without suspecting that their find was one of the greatest discoveries – the famous Panagyurishte treasure.

With a total weight of 6,163 kg, the treasure consists of 9 gold vessels – four rhytons with animal images, three anthropomorphic jugs, an amphora with handles in the shape of centaurs and a phial. The golden vessels are richly decorated with reliefs from Greek mythology.

• The three jugs have the shape of female heads, and their handles end with mythological animals.
• Two of the rhytons represent the heads of a deer, and the third is a vessel that is half the figure of an animal – the front of a goat, and the fourth is a ram. The upper part of all four rhytons is decorated with scenes from ancient Greek mythology.
• The beautiful phial (height 3 cm, diameter 25 cm; 845.5 grams) is covered with embossed images and ornaments.

Created in the late IV and early III century BC . , the Thracian gold was considered the pinnacle of goldsmithing at that time. It belonged to a ruler of the Odrysian tribe (Thracian tribe), and the vessels were used for religious ceremonies – they were rarely used and for a short period of time. According to some archaeologists, it was made in the ancient city of Lampasc (on the west coast of the Black Sea) and is influenced of Persian goldsmithing. According to others it is made in the center of Thrace – it combines artistic elements typical of Thracian, Hellenistic and Eastern style of art.

One of the assumptions is that the Panagyurishte treasure belonged to Seuthes III himself – a Thracian ruler in 330 B C to 300 B C.