Free Valley of Thracians by Ellis Shuman Page A

now living in the western United States made his whole visit to
Bulgaria seem pointless.
    “Yes, Montana. It’s a town about an hour’s drive north of Vratsa,” Peters said. “It’s good
that we keep records of these things.”
    Sophia, who had kept quiet during the
entire meeting, sat forward suddenly. She touched Simon’s hand and said, “I’ll
drive you there.”
    “There’s a town in Bulgaria called
Montana?” Simon asked incredulously.

 
 

Chapter
15

 
 
    The Regional History Museum of Vratsa
consisted of nine exhibition halls highlighting Bulgarian history, archaeology,
geology, and information about the life and final days of Hristo Botev, the
country’s beloved revolutionary hero who had been killed by the Ottomans in the
nearby mountains. Sophia didn’t bother to stop at any of the display cases but
hurried Simon along to a climate-controlled room in the back that was the most
popular in the entire museum. This was the Treasure Room, home to Bulgaria’s
largest collection of ancient Thracian artifacts.
    In this hall, glass display cases were
brightly lit to showcase the silver- and gold-gilded vessels within. Each of
the rectangular boxes displayed a number of the items, dated to the first half
of the fourth century BC and arranged attractively on top of colored fabric.
Descriptions were printed in both Bulgarian and English. Close examination of
each piece revealed ornate detail that had survived the centuries.
    One gold-gilt pitcher, about thirteen
centimeters in height, displayed the barefooted Thracian Virgin Goddess. Her
hair was braided and her head was shown full-faced, in what Sophia described as
the Thracian manner. A draped chiton was flung over her left shoulder
and pulled tightly under her right armpit. In one hand the goddess held a bow
and arrow, while with the other she was hugging the large cat, possibly a
mountain lion or panther, on which she was mounted.
    To its side was a second pitcher, two
centimeters shorter than the first and crafted entirely of silver. Depicted in
its center was another goddess, this one with a disproportionately large head.
In each of her hands the goddess held a backward-facing small dog, while winged
centaurs galloped at either side. In the lower part of this pitcher, an
engraved bull was being attacked by two pairs of enraged dogs.
    “The details are absolutely exquisite!”
Simon said, looking closely through the glass. He was extremely pleased that
Sophia had insisted on a short tour of the museum following their meeting with
the Peace Corps training director. The artifacts were stunning, as brilliant
today as they had been upon their creation millennia before. “Where were these
treasures discovered?”
    In 1985, a farmer by the name of Ivan
Dimitrov was working on his tractor, preparing to dig a new well for his
vegetable garden in the village of Rogozen, some forty-three kilometers north
of Vratsa, Sophia explained. Just a short distance below the surface, he
encountered an obstruction, and upon investigation, Dimitrov saw that he had
unearthed a hoard of silver vessels. More digging revealed a total of forty-two
jugs; twenty-two wide, shallow saucers known as phialai; and other objects. He brought the artifacts to the staff
at the Vratsa museum.
    Archaeologists converged on the site and
further excavations revealed another pit containing one hundred silver vessels
buried just forty centimeters below the surface. In this second location,
eighty-six phialai , twelve jugs, and
two cups were discovered. The archaeologists dated the discoveries to the
fourth century BC, conjecturing that the objects belonged to a local noble
family that buried its treasures due to extreme circumstances, possibly in fear
of a foreign invasion. Some claimed that the treasure was buried to prevent its
falling to the conquering forces of Alexander the Great.
    “Because most of the Rogozen vessels
were made of silver, some will say that the gold treasures discovered