🗞️ Oldest Golden Artifacts Ever Found in a 5th Millennium BC Grave
What happened:
Archaeologists have highlighted one of the wealthiest graves ever found from the 5th millennium BC — part of the Varna necropolis in Bulgaria — known for containing extraordinarily old and rich golden artifacts.
Key discoveries:
• The site includes the earliest known gold artifacts in the world, dating to around 4600–4200 BC.
• Grave 43 belonged to a very high‑status individual, buried with a wealth of gold ornaments, copper tools, pottery, and richly decorated objects.
• Some burials in the necropolis contained symbolic graves (cenotaphs) with no skeletons but large amounts of treasure, indicating social complexity and ritual practices.
• The Varna culture’s metallurgical expertise shows that goldsmithing began far earlier in Europe than previously thought, predating major civilizations like Mesopotamia and Egypt.
Why it’s significant:
This discovery not only reveals advanced prehistoric metallurgy but also provides key evidence of social stratification and early elite burial practices in prehistoric Europe.
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