The Varna Chalcolithic Necropolis was discovered accidentally during digging works in the Western Industrial Zone of the city of Varna in the autumn of 1972. Even in the first graves, an incredible amount of gold and copper items was discovered. That immediately caused a media and scientific sensation on a global scale. Dated to the Late Copper Age (second half of the 5th millennium BC), the necropolis reveals the picture of a rich society with members of a diverse social and material status, with complex organization and established power structures. With its variety of burial practices and the huge number of finds made of different materials, the Varna Chalcolithic Necropolis remains the most remarkable and significant prehistoric site not only in the Balkans and Europe but in the entire world.
First and foremost, the Necropolis arouses people’s interest with its variety and abundance of grave offerings. Among them, the gold items attract the greatest attention. There are over 3,000 of them, with their total weight exceeding 6 kg. Their distribution in the graves is quite indicative: they were found only in 62 complexes, but the weight of the gold items found in graves 1, 4, 36, and 43 alone is over 5 kg. So far, no similar concentration of gold artifacts from the 5th millennium BC has been discovered. The weight and quantity of the gold finds from the Varna Necropolis surpass several times over those of all synchronous objects made of this precious metal discovered worldwide.
However, no less important is the significant difference in the number and type of other offerings found in individual graves. The Varna Chalcolithic Necropolis illustrates the first stages of the emergence of a class society, making it a testimony to the appearance of the first civilization – earlier than the Sumerian and Egyptian civilizations by more than half a millennium. The gold objects mark the social status of their owners and are not expressions of their personal wealth. It appears that here were buried the inhabitants of the socio-economic center of a highly developed community inhabiting the Northwestern Black Sea region in the second half of the 5th millennium BC.
The excavations of the necropolis, with a few interruptions, lasted for 13 seasons from 1972 to 1991. During this period, a total area of 7,500 square meters was excavated, and 301 graves were studied, of which 93 were of men, 67 of women, and 47 were symbolic – without a body laid in them. The rest were disturbed to various degrees by later burials, construction, and agricultural activities.
