New gold mines are still being found all over the world – although discoveries of large deposits are becoming increasingly rare – but what is the oldest gold artifact ever found, and was it part of a treasure hoard discovered in a cemetery, or a tiny bead unearthed in a pre-historic settlement – Bulgaria holds the answer.
In October 1972, in the Black Sea coast city of Varna, Bulgaria, excavator operator Raycho Marinov accidentally discovered what is now known as the Varna necropolis, a site on which 294 graves have been found, many containing sophisticated examples of metallurgy – gold and copper, around 600 pieces of pottery, high-quality flint and obsidian blades, beads and shells.
Among these historic and actual treasures, lay what is believed to be the oldest gold artifacts in the world, dating from 4,600 BC to 4,200 BC. The necropolis is now internationally considered to be one of the key archaeological sites in world prehistory.
In particular, a burial spot now known as ‘grave 43’ stood out among the rest. Inside grave 43 archaeologists found the remains of a high-status male who appeared to have been a ruler, or leader of some kind. More gold was found in this grave than in the entirety of the rest of the world in that period.
The male, who became known as the Varna man, was buried with a sceptre – a symbol of high rank – and wore a sheath of solid gold over his penis. Grave 43 also marks the first known elite male burial in Europe. Prior to this, it was women and children who received the most elaborate burials.
The Culture behind the World’s Oldest Gold Artifacts
The great ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Indus Valley are well known to most people and are documented as being the earliest known civilizations to show urbanization, organized administration, and cultural advancement. However, very few have heard of the mysterious civilization that emerged on the shores of the lakes near the Black Sea some 7,000 years ago.
The Varna culture, as it is now known, was not a small and unimportant society that existed in a little corner of what would become Bulgaria, disappearing quickly into the pages of history. Rather, it was an incredibly advanced civilization, more ancient than the empires of Mesopotamia and Egypt, and the first known culture to craft gold artifacts.
Available evidence suggests that it was between 4,600 and 4,200 BC when goldsmithing first began in Varna. As progress was made, and craftsmen mastered metallurgy of copper and gold, the people now had something of great value to trade.
A surge in contact with neighbors in both the north and south eventually opened up trade relations within the Black Sea and the Mediterranean region, which was of great importance for the development of the society. The deep bay, along which the settlements of Varna existed, provided a comfortable harbor for ships sailing across the Black Sea and Varna became a prosperous trading center.
An increase in trade allowed the gold and copper metallurgists to accumulate wealth and even led to a societal gap with metallurgists at the top, followed by merchants in the middle, and farmers comprising the lower class.
The Gold in Varna Necropolis
Inside the necropolis are both crouched and straight inhumations. Some graves do not hold a skeleton, but grave gifts, including gold artifacts. In total, 3,000 gold artifacts have been found, with a weight of approximately six kilograms.
One academic, named Vladimir Slavchev, wrote in his paper ‘The Varna Eneolithic Cemetery in the Context of the Late Copper Age in the East Balkans’, that “Varna is the oldest cemetery yet found where humans were buried with abundant gold ornaments. The weight and the number of gold finds in the Varna cemetery exceeds by several times the combined weight and number of all of the gold artifacts found in all excavated sites of the same millennium, 5000-4000 BC, from all over the world, including Mesopotamia and Egypt.”
He continues “Three graves contained gold objects that together accounted for more than half of the total weight of all gold grave goods yielded by the cemetery. A sceptre, symbol of a supreme secular or religious authority, was discovered in each of these three graves.”
A Challenger for the Title of Oldest Gold Artifact in the World
In 2016, a tiny gold bead – just 4mm (1/8 inch) in diameter – was discovered by Bulgarian archaeologists who said they had found Europe’s, and probably the world’s oldest gold artifact.
The bead was found at a prehistoric settlement in southern Bulgaria and dates back to 4,500-4,600 BC, the archaeologists said, which makes it some 200 years older than jewelery and gold from the Copper Age necropolis of Varna.
This tiny bead may be the world's oldest gold artifact pic.twitter.com/8pupeo7bUT
— CBC News (@CBCNews) August 11, 2016
“I have no doubt that it is older than the Varna gold,” Yavor Boyadzhiev, associated professor at the Bulgarian Academy of Science, told Reuters at the time.
“It’s a really important discovery. It is a tiny piece of gold but big enough to find its place in history.”
Boyadzhiev believes the bead was made at the site, just outside the modern town of Pazardzhik, which he says was the first “urban” settlement in Europe, peopled by “a highly-cultured society” which moved there from Anatolia, in today’s Turkey, around 6,000 B.C.
“I would say it is a prototype of a modern town, though we can say what we have here is an ancient town, judged by Mesopotamian standards,” Boyadzhiev told Reuters.
“But we are talking about a place which preceded Sumer by more than 1,000 years,” he added, referring to what is usually considered the first urban civilization, based in southern Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq.
The gold bead, weighing 15 centigrams (0.005 ounces), was dug up in late July in the remains of a small house that would have stood at a time when metals such as copper and gold were being used for the first time.
