The World's First Goldsmiths: The Varna Culture

The Varna Necropolis, Bulgaria contains the earliest gold treasure in the world, dating to 4500 BC. These Chalcolithic graves of Old Europe contained more than 3,000 gold artefacts weighing over six kilograms. That's more than anywhere else in the fifth millennium BC, including Mesopotamia and Egypt. Instead of the glorious civilisations of the near east, the world's first goldsmiths lived on the shores of the Black Sea. But what was the Varna Culture? How did they accumulate so much treasure? And what happened to them?

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