Sunday, January 31, 2010

Gold "Chest" Piece from Bulgaria

A lovely piece; unfortunately, the photograph is not the best quality.  I am wondering if the end pieces are stylized serpents' heads???  I also am frankly skeptical of the story that the dude climbing the mountain just happened to see this piece sitting in a snow drift? 
From Standartnews.com
Thirty-Three-Century-Old Gold Chest Piece Displayed in Bulgaria
Friday January 29, 2010
Ivan Ivanov
An ancient artifact, made of Mycenaean gold (1600 BC-1100 BC), was put on display at the Museum of History in the town of Gabrovo. The exhibit - a unique chest piece, discovered at an altitude of 2276 meters in the heart of the Balkan Mountain - is shown for the first time, despite the fact that it was found 10 years ago. It was then that Ivan Stoyanov, the conductor of the Gabrovo Chamber Orchestra and an enthusiastic mountaineer, climbed the Balkan peak of Golyam Kademliya on the occasion of his birthday. He saw the bijou in one of the snowdrifts and took it. After consulting archaeologist Rossen Yossifov it transpired that the chest piece, worked out by an unknown craftsman, is made from native gold. It is forged of 23-carat gold and weighs 7.62 grams. According to one of the hypotheses, the bijou has once belonged to a Thracian priest. The experts claim that in the 13th century BC a Thracian sanctuary existed on the mount of Golyam Kademliya. The chest piece is similar to the gold finds, discovered at the shaft grave in Mycenae.

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