Ornate 5th Century BC Bone Scepter of Scythian Warrior Becomes August 2024 ‘Exhibit of the Month’ of Bulgaria’s National Museum of Archaeology
The 5th century BC Scythian warrior’s bone scepter discovered at the Salt Pit Settlement Mound in Bulgaria’s Provadiya has become the August 2024 “Exhibit of the Month” of Bulgaria’s National Museum of Archaeology. Photo: P. Leshtakov, National Institute and Museum of Archaeology
A truly impressive and sophisticated artifact – a bone scepter that belonged a Scythian warrior from the 5th century BC discovered in Europe’s oldest town, the Provadiya-Solnitsata Settlement Mound in Northeast Bulgaria – has been declared “Exhibit of the Month” for August 2024 of the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia.
The prehistoric Provadiya-Solnitsata (“The Salt Pit”) Settlement Mound near the town of Provadiya in today’s Northeast Bulgaria is known as the earliest town in Europe.
Researched by Prof. Vasil Nikolov from the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, it has yielded striking Prehistory finds over the past couple of decades.
The settlement’s dwellers grew rich already in the Neolithic on their mining and exports of rock salt.
While many of the discoveries at the Provadiya-Solnitsata Settlement Mound are from the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods, the southeastern section of the mound has been found to contain several burial pits from the Late Iron Age, explains the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology.
One of these 5th century BC burial pits has yielded the lower part of the skeleton of a Scythian warrior, who was buried with an iron knife and a bone scepter.
The bone scepter in question is 39 centimeters long.
“[The scepter’s] top features an interesting combination of an eagle’s head combined with a Scythian warrior’s face, with the [eagle’s] beak playing also the role of a hat,” the museum says.
“The detailedness of the craftsmanship is impressive. The artifact’s surface was polished and is made up of four elements. It has a long cylindrical body of two longitudinal halves with an elliptical cross-section,” it adds.
“The [specter’s] top is engraved with the stylized head of a bird of prey, while the reverse side features an anthropomorphic image. Its lower part features a hemispherical socket,” the museum elaborates.
The 5th century BC Scythian warrior’s scepter, which has been declared the August 2024 Exhibit of the Month” of the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia, was part of the temporary exhibition “The Lords of Salt: Provadiya-Solnitsata 5600-4350 BC.”
The exhibition was organized on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of since the start of the archaeological excavations of the Provadiya-Solnitsata Settlement Mound in 2004.
“The Lords of Salt” exhibition was unveiled at the National Museum of Archaeology in Sofia on June 11, 2024, and can be viewed until September 18, 2024.
Its scientific supervisor is Prof. Vasil Nikolov, and the curator is Dr. Galina Samichkova; the exhibition catalog was published by the “Prof. Marin Drinov” Publishing House of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.
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Learn more about the Provadiya – Solnitsata (The Salt Pit) prehistoric settlement in Bulgaria’s Provadiya in the Background Infonotes below!
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The prehistoric settlement of Provadiya – Solnitsata (i.e. “The Salt Pit”), also known as the Provadiya Settlement Mound is located 6 km southeast of the modern-day town of Provadiya, Varna District, in Northeast Bulgaria.
It is a prehistoric settlement mound which in a later historical period was turned into a large Ancient Thracian burial mound. It has been dubbed “Europe’s oldest prehistoric town.
The prehistoric settlement mound has an archaeological layer of about 6 meters, and a diameter of 105 meters at the only rock salt deposit in the eastern part of the Balkan Peninsula. It is has a territory of 7 decares (app. 1.75 acres).
The extraction of rock salt began during the Late Neolithic, about 5,400-5,000 BC, with the prehistoric residents of the town boiling water from a local salt water spring in ceramic vessels placed inside large domed kilns, and producing salt bricks which they traded and used for the preservation of meat.
The Salt Pit settlement near Provadiya is Europe’s earliest known case of the use of this salt-making technology making Provadiya the oldest salt producing center on the continent.
The life of the Providiya – Solnitsata settlement continued during the Mid Chalcolithic, i.e. between 4,600 and 4,500 BC, and the Late Chalcolithic, between 4,500 and 4,200 BC, when it developed further into a major salt making complex, with the initial kilns being replaced by open-air salt pits up to 10 meters in diameter.
The prehistoric people would light an open fire at the bottom of the pit to boil the salt water in large clay bowls. It is estimated that in this period the town was inhabited by about 350 people.
The Salt Pit settlement near Bulgaria’s Provadiya has yielded a number of other intriguing discoveries such as Europe’s earliest two-storey homes from the Late Neolithic which were used for both dwelling, and salt making, as well as a granary where the archaeologists have found four sickles made of deer horns.
The lucrative extraction and trade of rock salt are believed to have led to the accumulation of wealth by the prehistoric inhabitants of the Provadiya – Solnitsata settlement, and have been linked to the gold treasure of the Varna Chalcolithic Necropolis (4,500-4,200 BC), the oldest hoard of gold objects found in the world, which is located 37 km to the east.
The riches of the settlement had to be protected which is why during the Mid Chalcolithic its inhabitants built a fortification consisting of a moat and a rampart wall of oak poles covered with clay as well as two large-scale stone bastions.
The bastions were destroyed by an earthquake around 4,550 BC leading the prehistoric people to build new walls made of stone, which also were destroyed by an earthquake. The moat in front of the fortress walls had a diameter of about 100 meters, and was over 2 meters wide, and 3.3 meters deep.
The archaeological artifacts from the fortified prehistoric settlement Provadiya – Solnitsata are part of the collections of the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia and Provadiya Museum of History.
Europe’s oldest prehistoric town was first excavated in 2005, and has been studied ever since, by lead archaeologist Prof. Vasil Nikolov from the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.
