THE FIRST CIVILIZATION IN EUROPE

Varna chalcolithic necropolis is dated in the late Chalcolithe (the end of 5th Millenium BC) and responds to the archealogical periods Karanovo V and Karanovo VI

The necropolis is situated on the northen shore of the lake of Varna, almost 300 burials are explored. More than 6 kg of gold objects are found. The necropolis reflects an early class of of a costal civilization of the Weastern Black seaside, which is superior in comparison with the synchronous cultures from the continental inland. Most of the costal settelments of this early European civiliztion are under the sea – water today.

(The pictures and the text are from the Web Page of Institute of Thracology, Sofia, Bulgaria; http://www.thracol.webbg.com

The study of the spiritual culture of the Chalcolithic, as well as of the other prehistoric epochs is complicated by the absence of the written sources. That’s why we are extremely fortunate to have the evidance of Varna necropolis beside which we should pay also attention to the Hotnitsa Treasure.

It is possible to differentiate statistically some groups of graves (see Ivanov, I., Varna and the birth of the Europen civilization and Myth, ritual and gold of a ‘civiliztion that did not take place’, by Maya Avramova: In Varna necropolis, The Down of Europen Civilization, Sofia 2000)

1st type – burials with skeletions in supine position

2nd type –burials with skletion in bent (hocker) position

3rd type – symbolic burials (cenoaphs)

“... Stages of the development of many religious notions, which had also preserved in mythology, in folkloire and in the rites of the historic times, may be detected in the symbolic graves studied from the Durankulak, Devnia and Vàrna necropoles. It seems to me that their semantics should be sought in the samples of the anthropomorphic images of the plastic art and in the Neolithic and Chalcolithic funeral complexes of the front territories of Asia and Anatolia …” Myth, ritual and gold of a ‘civiliztion that did not take place’, by Maya Avramova, p. 20