The First Kings of Europe: The Varna Culture

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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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On the Invention of Gold Metallurgy - Verena Leusch et al (2014)
The genomic history of southeastern Europe - Mathieson et al (2018)
Varna culture: an autonomous phenomenon or a local version of the Kodzhadermen-Gumelnitsa-Karanovo VІ cultural complex - Viktoria Petrova (2016)
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-- Video Chapters --
00:00 The Varna Culture
01:26 Video Sponsorship
02:27 Varna Necropolis burials
07:40 Cenotaph symbolic burials
11:10 Old Europe
13:22 Varna Trade Networks
14:18 Varna Chiefs
15:22 The Varna King
16:50 Varna culture DNA
18:27 the Fall of the Varna culture

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11 июл 2024

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Комментарии : 1 тыс.

@DanDavisHistory Год назад

@deluxecapprian983 Год назад

Do a video about thracian kings .Few tombs discovered in Bulgaria ,archeologies called this area Kings Valley.

@bonefetcherbrimley7740 Год назад

Damn, it sounds like the varna had serious swag.

@alfonsoduran6910 Год назад

Look up the Trypillian culture of Ukraine..The Goddess are an Exact match..You would also be surprised by their other symbols..Look up Tim and Heather Lee Hooker on RU-vid on their work in Europe..

@OldTerrible Год назад

Wotb 7 year veteran

@yvettakollega5791 Год назад

I think you may be confusing the adze, the trademark of the Neolithic Farmer burial, with the Battle Axe. You also speak about a golden penis sheath. This item is considered the tassel of his belt. I will not be watching any more of your videos because I can see that there is an issue with accuracy and broader knowledge of archaeology.

@Somewhat-Evil Год назад

These "Varna" people are from 4500 BC! To put that into perspective of how old that is; Upper and Lower Egypt was unified around 3150 BC stating the first Pharaonic dynasty. Ur was founded around 3800 BC and Gilgamesh was its king around 2900 BC. Crazier still is that Jericho was founded in 9600 BC and Gobekli Tepe dates back to 9500 BC. We know so little, almost NOTHING, about our early history. 😢😭

@petermorton301 Год назад

Who is Homo-Sapien.

@petermorton301 Год назад

Europe is not older then Kemet.

@eddielopez2373 Год назад

@@petermorton301 our gayest ancestor

@E.TTrailblazer Год назад

@@eddielopez2373 LMFAO

@KvltKrist Год назад

You know we have dated man made tools to over a hundred thousand years ago. BCE*

@stefansoder6903 9 месяцев назад

This era in Europe is so underestimated. This was a thousand years before Stonehenge and the standing stones all around Europe! And such an early admixture of Yamnaya - very interesting in deed!

@jorgegonzalez-larramendi5491 Год назад

funny: in sanskrit "varna" - amongst other things - means "gold".

@aleksandarilic7666 4 месяца назад

In Serbian we use "varnica" for "spark". There is also a synonym which I know is Slavic in origin which is "iskra" but I'm not sure about "varnica".

@caddieohm7059 Месяц назад

See 'varnish'

@kirokirov-lu8cs 24 дня назад

@@aleksandarilic7666 Колико ја знам име потиче од пољског аристократе.

@juriskrumgolds5810 Год назад

I'm Latvian living in Varna for a year already. Didn't even know this! Now I'm eager to explore sites of this culture scattered around this town. Thank you!

@garrysekelli6776 Год назад

Buy a metal detector and a pickaxe and some dynamite and get to work.

@varna9000BG Год назад

You should visit the History Museum in Varna -Downtown next to the city hall. You will see a replica of the treasure.

@carlustin4034 Год назад

Yes ,yes Latvians have the Soviet type of attitude. Varna Archeological museum is a must for a visitor. Also as Baltian, you can visit the Memorial-Historical museum of Vladislav Varnenchik (1444 battle between Ottomans and Crusaidors led by Polish -Lithovian king)

@juriskrumgolds5810 Год назад

@@carlustin4034 What do you mean by "Soviet type of attitude"?

@tnickknight Год назад

@@carlustin4034 no, the Baltics do not remotely have a Soviet mind set,. That's why they were so fast to toss them out when free.

@MagnusItland Год назад

Maybe the later "barbarian" steppe people were influenced by the Varna long after its passing, in a similar way that the Germanic peoples in the Dark Ages were heavily influenced by the glory of Rome, for centuries after its fall. Surely this place must have spawned legends that turned into myth that is now long forgotten.

@DanDavisHistory Год назад

That's an interesting idea, perhaps that is what happened. Perhaps they were more influenced by one another when they coexisted. There's a 2004 book I would like to read called "Zepterträger - Herrscher der Steppen. Die frühen Ockergräber des älteren Äneolithikums im karpatenbalkanischen Gebiet und im Steppenraum Südost- und Osteuropas". Some have suggested that the Varna culture (and its Old European neighbours) influenced the steppe societies, driving them towards establishing powerful chiefdoms like at Varna. This book argues it was more about the interactions between the various steppe tribes and the settled proto-civilisation of the Balkans and Carpathians that led to these cultural developments. The book suggests the new burial tradition that evolved can be seen across a wide area from Old Europe to the steppe cultures, but that only certain people in all these societies were buried like this. These may have been a new chiefly social class, or perhaps a kind of merchant class who mediated the trade system, or mobile craft experts especially metal workers. As I say, I haven't read it myself but it's an intriguing idea.

@CChissel Год назад

@@DanDavisHistory Great insight and that sounds like a great read, I’ll have to see if I can pick up a copy. Love your videos!

@CChissel Год назад

@Nicolai Myshkin Why not? Barbarians are only “barbarians” to their enemies.

@viclorenz2522 Год назад

Kinda adds good reason for the Greeks wanting to over throw Troy as they were the ones who controlled access to the Black sea.

@Kenshiroit Год назад

@Nicolai Myshkin everyone is a barbarians to everyone else

@larrygrimaldi1400 Год назад

A most remarkable thing is that these treasures were not looted over the centuries.

@mekhane.broken9678 Год назад

The graves were unmarked and thus hidden It was found by accident.

@styleisaweapon Год назад

when they were buried people may not have considered gold to be so precious - perhaps merely convenient like the clay used to make the pottery

@brawndothethirstmutilator9848 Год назад

styleisaweapon, Gold has had the same prestigious place as a monetary metal and source of wealth for over 5,000 years.

@newprofilesowhat1339 Год назад

@@brawndothethirstmutilator9848, but this grave is over 6,500 years old....

@brawndothethirstmutilator9848 Год назад

New Profile, So What, And? Research the history of gold and you’ll see that the OP’s line of reasoning is facile. We have concrete evidence of gold being used as money for international trade and wealth accumulation in dynastic vaults from over 5,000 years ago. This means it would have to be well established as valuable as part of global human culture much much earlier. Furthermore, these people were making adornments of jewelry and ornamentation from gold and incorporating it in burial rights. These are behaviors that confer value to the gold.

@boilingwateronthestove Год назад

It's crazy how important these folks were for their time, but we have all forgotten about them until we randomly stumbled upon their remains. It makes you wonder what other stories we have no memory about.

@_Ben___ Год назад

6:55 the scepter wasn't the only shaft lined with gold by the looks of it.

@karenabrams8986 4 месяца назад

Looks like a thimble! 😂

@freshmaker4o Год назад

The source of their wealth is likely the salt mine at nearby Provadia, sitting at around 40km west from Varna, developed around the same time or earlier. Apparently in the past salt was very precious commodity and there it was produced on an industrial scale. Curiously, wealth accumulation eventually led to the necessity to fortify the area with a stone wall and other structures, making it the oldest known fortified town in Europe

@DISTurbedwaffle918 4 месяца назад

The word "salary" comes from the Latin word for salt, as legionnaires would sometimes be paid with it. Considering the hard work to mine salt and the valuable uses for salt as both a preservative and flavoring agent (and more), it makes sense it would be worth its weight in gold (and sometimes more than its weight).

@Byronic19134 4 месяца назад

@@DISTurbedwaffle918They often got paid in salt in salt like you said that’s where salary came from. Salt was like electricity back then and made everything work.

@miketacos9034 Год назад

Wow, the notion of goldsmith-kings reminds me of how blacksmiths (and other skilled workers) were often regarded as magic in pagan and medieval cultures. Must be an old idea. Fascinating video!

@riccardodececco4404 Год назад

yes, even in Germanic saga being a blacksmith was considered a royal craft - like in the stories about Wieland it was not a shame for a prince to learn the trade of blacksmith

@Thor-Orion 8 месяцев назад

@@riccardodececco4404goes further back. Scythia had Royal blacksmiths in this same region that produced some of the beautiful gold work that their culture is famous for.

@Milen4u Год назад

I am from Varna and I pass near the necropolis every day going to work. Of course if you don't know it's there, you would never know as it's surrounded by industrial buildings. Still many of the sites haven't been excavated and I don't know why for so many years they haven't funded it. I am happy that there is such a detailed video about the topic and I learned new things. The whole area along the lake down to the sea shore was populated. There are other remains from this period that have been found during construction works.

@gothicwestern Год назад

It's tragic that so little research is done on Old Europe. It makes me wonder if Old Europe is deliberately ignored because it might distract us from worshipping the Middle-East.

@M.Georgiev8527 11 месяцев назад

@@gothicwesternActually the local archeologists and anthropologists are doing deep and extensive research. We should blame the authorities for not promoting properly our cultural heritage.

@NikeBG 9 месяцев назад

As far as I remember, about a third of the Varna necropolis is still left completely buried and untouched, and it's done on purpose by the archaeologists, wishing to leave it to the future generations who might get to study it with less intrusive techniques and technologies. However, a relative lack of funding might, indeed, be another factor in that decision. In any case, it's great luck that the treasure hunters haven't really caused any extensive damage, as they've done in numerous other sites around the country.

@blanco7726 4 месяца назад

Its likely that if they were sea-oriented most of their shit is under the water. Not sure though, it seems sea level was only at -2 meters from now around 4000 BC and I checked that on Bulgarian coast, it doesnt add much land. -10 meters though and you start to get 3km of new land.

@user-ri1ti6go7s 10 месяцев назад

I was fortunate to see the Varna display at museum in Cambridge. UK... It was totally brilliant and lovely and an amazing culture

@Esstan1 Год назад

As a proud Bulgarian, I'm very happy to see someone actually making a video about this. It truly is a remarkable culture and finding. Thank you!

@princekrazie Год назад

Bulgarian national treasure = gold condom🤪

@The_ZeroLine Год назад

As an ashamed Bulgarian, I am very happy to see someone actually making a video about this.

@dropanukeonusaagain6606 Год назад

it is connected with Bulgaria only geographically as an excavation site, here we are talking about the Neolithic, that is, the late Stone Age, no Bulgaria and no Bulgarians then existed in nature Bulgarians will emerge as a people only in the early Middle Ages, it's like the French would be proud of a man from a Cro-Magnon cave

@coryfice1881 Год назад

@@dropanukeonusaagain6606 Yeah if the Vera culture was magically transported to modern day they wouldn't have a clue what is going on here.

@dropanukeonusaagain6606 Год назад

@@coryfice1881 varna not vera And no people of antiquity were the same as modern ones, only their material culture and self-consciousness were different, even in the Paleolithic people were the same as they are now. They would easily adapt. There are many examples of how people from the more primitive societies of Asia, Africa and America encountered more modern people and nothing much happened to them.

@Limosethe Год назад

Imagine all the impoverished presents in the middle ages who walked around in Varna, not knowing that right beneath their feet were vast, ancient riches.

@NOISECAUSEDCANCER Год назад

For those interested in the topic I would recommend prof.Hristo Smolenov's works and research on the neolithic Varna culture and its artifacts , there are some videos uploaded on his channel called The Black Sea Atlantis - Черноморската Атлантида here on youtube , there is also a link to a virtual book for anyone interested .

@HittiteVodku Год назад

It seems that history of chalcolithic era should be rewritten taking Varna culture into consideration. This amount of golden artifacts presented so early in the era remains unprecedented in the history of Near East and neighbouring areas. It demands more research no doubt. Thank you Dan Davis for bringing it up. Well done.

@baneofbanes Год назад

Unprecedented?

@alfonsoduran6910 Год назад

The Trypillian culture of Europe is older with the same representation as the Goddess statues from this video so I would assume it came from there first then spread..

@bosanskislavonac Год назад

Danubian culture

@dankovassilev58 9 месяцев назад

30 kilometers from Varna has first village6000 Years of Salt production, 170 kilometers from Varna City Perperikon 5-6000 years ,and much more

@JesseP.Watson Год назад

That Varna Chieftain/Smith is about as true a King Arthur as I can imagine - in as much as he pulled swords from stones on a daily basis (metaphorically speaking).

@barefootkiwi3026 Год назад

4:40 The use of red ochre (or kōkōwai) is also used by Māori. One of the reasons is that the red earth symbolises the blood spilled when Ranginui (the Sky Father) and Papatūānuku (the Earth Mother) were separated, so it is a sacred colour.

@Timer-Diegon1111 Год назад

Ask yourself where the mauri got it and who the Waka blondes really are. Same for the haka and tattoos. All Celtic.

@ljukler Год назад

@@Timer-Diegon1111 Both of you dont have idea about what you are talking and the time period.

@WarblesOnALot Год назад

@@Timer-Diegon1111 G'day, Write on a Blackboard 10,000 times... no No NOOOOO !!!! The Keltic Klowns in Kilts Didnae Niver appear Here, in Oz Or Kiwiland... Until the Yamnayans showed up, Dirk Hartog, Will I Am Dampier, Abel Tasman All came, saw, and wthdrew Bewildered... But Jimmy the Kook Shot the First Aborigine to ever Encounter a Yamnayan... The Yamnayans went to the British Islands 5,000 years ago, and ALL Work on Stonehenge immediately ceased. 100 years after work on Stonehenge ceased..., there were no longer ANY British Y-Chromosomes going onto British Cemereries. ALL the Human Testicles living on the "Great" 'British Islands' were YAMNAYAN For 5,000 years before Britain Invaded and Occupied and Stole Oz and Kiwiland. MEANWHILE... MUNGO MAN Was burried In Oz FORTY THOUSAND YEARS AGO... WITH RED OCHRE As Grave-Goods Cave Paintings in Oz, done in RED & WHITE OCHRE are 65,000 years old. The "Celts. Invented NOTHING. The "Celts"were beed up from Conquered and Dispossessed Enslaved Women who were Kept Alive, To work an to Fcuk... AFTER EVERY "BRITISH" Male Human had Bin-Killed By their CONQUERORS. Such is what the Archaeology And DNA Analysis Tells Us All... Such is life, Have a good one... Stay safe. ;-p Ciao !

@alfonsoduran6910 Год назад

Look up Graham Hancocks special on Netflix.. Ancient Apocalypse.. We were a world wide culture before the Younger Dryas..So let's not get shitty here.We were once one...Also look up the Trypillian culture of Ukraine. It dates to about 7000 years ago. The Goddess depicted here are an Exact match...You would be surprised at what there other symbols were as well.. Also look up Tim and Heather Lee Hooker work on RU-vid..

@declanjones8888 Год назад

@@Timer-Diegon1111 Not sure if that's accurate and I'm Celtic meself.

@mikepette4422 Год назад

So our love of precious metals really is as ancient as it gets but what i am most impressed with is the skill that is exhibited here. these items are amazing ! very complex and above all beautiful and artistic

@GreenTimeEagle Год назад

I really love the style that is disc like, smooth and geometric. Almost like sea shells but golden. Gives a calming feeling

@GriffinParke Год назад

I'd never heard of the Varna culture before. The sophistication of their gold working suggests they had been doing this for some time, so there could be alot more out there. I think there is definite possibility they influenced the Steppe cultures, such as the use of masks in graves, which later appears in the Catacomb Culture. Fascinating.

@huskytail Год назад

There's a lot of archeology under the Black sea. It's difficult to excavate but I sometimes like to imagine what other secrets this culture and it's predecessors hid.

@TyrSkyFatherOfTheGods Год назад

I'm so curious about these metalworking "shamans," and the power that their knowledge conveyed. The knowledge would give a culture such power, it's a wonder they shared it with outsiders.

@DanDavisHistory Год назад

Yes I'm sure the knowledge and skill was closely guarded and brought them great power. There was so much copper ore and gold nuggets in the Balkans at this time, it was often exposed on the surface and shining in river sediments. But it's the transformation of that into pieces of metal, and the transformation of that into useful and beautiful objects that would have been so magical. There's a debate about which came first, copper or gold working. Most people assume copper because there's so much more evidence for it but it seems likely they evolved together here in the Balkans.

@somethingelse4424 Год назад

@@DanDavisHistoryIt does seem like metallurgy would be easier to initially discover when it comes to gold, since it occurs in pure nuggets and melts at such a low temperature. Copper is a more finicky thing to refine and has a higher melting point.

@Thor-Orion 8 месяцев назад

@@somethingelse4424well they ensured their people’s survival with this skill. The Scythians who came later guarded this region and it’s smiths and eventually relocated their descendants when the region became too dangerous. You can actually see the gold working tradition of later times existing in some of these earlier pieces. It’s incredible.

@carlustin4034 Год назад

Thank you for making and posting a video about archaeological finds that are so important to understand human civilization development. Traditionally, important historical events and finds on the territory of modern Bulgaria are not popularized. The processed gold found in Varna necropolis is the oldest in the world and by quantity exceeds many times the closest epochs findings around the whole world combined including those found in Mesopotamia, Egypt 500-1500 years younger civilizations than (Varna culture). The Eastern Balkans, basins of the Danube, and the North coast of the Black sea steppe region gateway to Asia are the cradle of the oldest civilizations in the World and Europe and many not so old.

@huwzebediahthomas9193 Год назад

When Ireland was a pre-peat post-glacial tundra, it is said it was cover in gold nuggets and surface seams, rivers and that, in many areas. And was traded all down western Europe and all the way up the Mediterranean, for many many thousands of year, in memorium.

@hotstepper887 Год назад

You've a great way of making history interesting, the way I believe it should be taught, not always just believing, but also questioning. Good stuff as always, Dan.

@CrosshairM4A1 Год назад

I love these "Old Europe" cultures. You always bring so many interesting facts that nobody mention. Do you plan to explore more of these kind of cultures in old europe? Are there any interesting findings close to today Slovakia? Thanks

@AncientAmericas Год назад

Excellent episode as always! What a fascinating culture!

@DanDavisHistory Год назад

Thank you.

@Miroslava_Ivanova Год назад

I'm Bulgarian and was actually lucky enough to see this treasure live, probably about 15 years ago. It was quite amazing, honestly.

@Survivethejive Год назад

Great video Dan. Gold is sacred. Amazing to think of the Sredny stog connection

@DanDavisHistory Год назад

Thank you. Yes it's interesting. There was surely generations of interaction between these societies that influenced the cultures of both.

@morski_ludak2239 Год назад

Bulgarian here, thanks for the video. Glad i found your channel

@kambojarian 8 месяцев назад

In the second largest ancient DNA study published in February 2018, scientists and archaeologists from 80 different institutions unveiled the mystery of Southeastern Europe's, including Bulgaria's, genomic history. These people were a mixture of largely Anatolian farmers and native hunter gatherers, with spattering of some steppe migrants. Geneticist David Reich has analyzed in great details the antecedents and DNA composition of the Hunter-Farmer confluence in Europe. Several others including geneticist from Max Plank Institute have analyzed and confirmed findings of the Nature Journal. Varna culture is enormously important in view of its Genome, and much less because of the amount of gold or the fact of antiquity. Nonetheless, it cannot be fairly compared with the mega civilizations of Egypt and Sumer , what with their supremely rich written languages and mythologies giving rise to the latter mediterranean civilizations.

@liquidoxygen819 Год назад

I had never heard of this culture until you made mention of it, and I'm a bit ashamed of myself for that (just as how I hadn't heard of Cucuteni-Trypillia). It's a travesty these amazing ancient cultures are not more well-known, and while maybe not that Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley Civilization get the lion's share of the attention, that Europe is virtually never included in these discussions. With these Varna artifacts, it's the first time I've truly marveled at European grave goods. Stupendous. With regard to their ethnolinguistic affiliation, I know Suvorovo is associated specifically with Anatolian or Pre-Anatolian Indo-European speakers by some scholars. Anatolia has become famous for its dearth of Steppe ancestry in skeletons from times when Anatolian languages were spoken; do you put any stock in the notion that it was amongst Pre-Anatolian Indo-Europeans that the model of "elite dominance" had its strongest showing? Perhaps this persisted into Anatolia itself and resolves the issue of why there's so little Steppe admixture there? Could the Varna chiefs represent the vanguard of a possible "Anatolian-style elite dominance model" for Indo-European language spread in the region?

@DanDavisHistory Год назад

Yeah it's still rather understudied. There are more excavations to be made at Varna alone and there are other sites too. There is a debate on the degree to which the Varna culture was actually different from its neighbours. Some argue they show no unique features other than the handful of very rich burials and that it only means they developed this funeral custom of making gold objects for burial. They say there's no evidence for any kind of aristocracy or kingship as institutions. Rather just some individuals happened to be special during their lives but there was no hereditary chiefdom. But I don't think there's enough evidence yet to conclude something like that. They say there's no evidence of social stratification in the settlements but the settlements are sometimes fortified like at Solnitsata (Provadia) and often include stone buildings like at Durankulak. It seems to me that maintaining long term relationships with resource generating areas for gold, copper, etc does require intergenerational social stability of a kind perpetuated by chiefdoms. Wish there were more aDNA samples and hopefully there will be in future but the soil acidity is a problem. As for the Suvorovo thing, I don't know what the relationship was. Clearly the Varna and surrounding groups of Old Europe had contact with the people in the Dnieper, Donets, Don, Volga valleys. And we can see there was DNA flowing into Varna from these people. But there's no classic steppe Y-haplogroup found in the Varna people so far which suggests they were a fully Old Europe society. It is possible their culture influenced that of the steppe peoples or rather the interactions between the Danubian cultures and the steppe cultures led to new social innovations.

@nosotrosloslobosestamosreg4115 Год назад

But of course Academia will neglect any Ancient Culture as they're anti-white marxists, my brother. My wife is Bulgarian so I'm gonna let her watch this video.

@56Seeker Год назад

@@DanDavisHistory "Old Europe" = PIE speakers??

@seanfaherty Год назад

@@nosotrosloslobosestamosreg4115 really ?

@nosotrosloslobosestamosreg4115 Год назад

@@56Seeker Don't use "PIE" for it implies we evolved from those indian mixed street poop deployers, say "Pre-Aryans" instead.

@huwzebediahthomas9193 Год назад

In obtaining metals from ores, the making of high carbon wood charcoal and then coke from coal, removing most impurities, was a secret art too, we could say.

@jezusbloodie Год назад

I love the way you can transport me to another era so far removed

@leekestner1554 Год назад

This may have been the origin of the Aesir-Vanir war. Gullveig of the Vanir introduced the Aesir to gold. The Aesir attack Gullveig and kill her but she comes back to life 3 times after being speared and burned. A metaphor for refining gold. After warring with each other and near mutual destruction they decided to make peace and exchange hostages.

@declanjones8888 Год назад

Could you tell me more about this story, it sounds interesting!

@fnansjy456 Год назад

No it isn't as the Varna culture have no relations with the Germanic tribes none whatsoever they live hundreds upon hundreds of kilometres away thousands of years before they appeared

@sarantis1995 Год назад

First time I watch one of your videos, and I have to say it's been remarkably well structured, narated with ease and fluency, very explanatory. Bravo

@SmallRoundDuck Год назад

The artistry and craftsmanship of the gold artifacts implies that there are even older pieces possibly to be found. Where those possible older pieces might be found and who they were made by is super fascinating

@pavelivanov2064 4 месяца назад

The government is restricting any research of, atleast 250 locations with extremely high value for the world cultural herritage, here, in Bulgaria...

@kaloyanradkov8962 Год назад

Thanks for spreading the word about the Varna Culture!

@Sool101 Год назад

Yeah, I did not know anything about them. Flabbergasted. So now I'm looking into and planning a visit to Varna.

@ryuzakilawlight Год назад

I was waiting for years for the world to recognize Bulgarian archaeology ❤

@k.schmidt8958 Год назад

Contemporary to the Danube Vinca culture. Good clip!

@mikef.1000 Год назад

Another great video, thanks Dan! As always I appreciate your measured approach, how you carefully weigh the evidence, and take care not to overreach in interpreting the evidence.

@M.Georgiev8527 11 месяцев назад

You've done an excellent homework Dan. Hristo Smolenov is perhaps the bulgarian scholar with biggest knowledge regarding this culture. You might also wanna check the treasures from Hotnitsa and Durankulak, dated around the very same time.

@WestlehSeyweld Год назад

When Dan Davis uploads, it’s a good day

@lyubomirkaradzhov165 Год назад

Thank you Dan for making this video. I really enjoy your channel and when I saw a video about my city I was very pleasantly surprised. We are quite proud of this heritage we have here

@dinosore4782 Год назад

It’s possible that society was mature earlier than we think. Such treasures never last long and grave robbing was like the weather

@Len124 Год назад

10:05 An alternative interpretation might be that, like some of the other cenotaphs, the chieftain's body might not have been recoverable and so they carried out the burial ritual sans corpse. I assume a vital aspect of his position would have been to lead his warriors in battle. What would be a better trophy or sign of victory than the body of the enemy's chief? He may have been killed on the battlefield and his body taken, or perhaps he was captured and killed, or even enthralled, after the fact? His body could have been lost other ways as well, but my point is that it makes more sense to me for the highly ornamented cenotaphs to represent a literally dead king without a body to bury than the symbolic death of a king who has simply lost his position to an up-and-comer.

@billmiller4972 Год назад

Awesome! Finally you made a documentary about this strange but impressive culture!!! Love it!

@willmosse3684 Год назад

Amazing. I did not known about this civilisation. I am in Romania at the moment, so not too far from this!

@carlustin4034 Год назад

Yes ,yes Romania puts a big effort for NOT knowing its closest neighbour's history

@morski_ludak2239 Год назад

@@carlustin4034 really? ;C

@dankovassilev58 9 месяцев назад

Go to Sinaia monastery in Romania and ask for golden plates with writed Bulgarian history

@Kis-met Год назад

As an Indian, you can see why a video on culture & gold immediately got my attention 😄. Jokes aside, very glad youtube recommended this channel to me. Looking forward to binge watching the rest of the uploads. Subscribed !

@ingridmorgan7893 Год назад

Are you Asian or North American Indian?

@Kis-met Год назад

@@ingridmorgan7893 - Indian from India.

@freckleheckler6311 Год назад

@@Kis-met I didn’t understand the joke you were presenting in your first sentence. Can you elaborate?

@ALOK-pe5fp Год назад

@@freckleheckler6311 of all indo european people Aryan clan was superior in every aspect astrology to biology to vedas to philosophy

@colinjames7569 Год назад

Bulgaria was populated by the celts It’s an incredibly beautiful story of our history The craftsmanship and artwork

@skylervanderpool3522 Год назад

Wow I’m always so happy to discover another incredible history channel! Thanks!

@f-1344 Год назад

This are thracians and proto-thracians, one of the four big indo-arians tribal formation that populated Europe.

@baneofbanes Год назад

Maybe

@lordofutub Год назад

People keep saying this guy was a chieftain because his grave is covered in golden artifacts, but the way we view gold as the metal of Kings is not necessarily the ones the people of the varna culture had. This dude may have just been an artisan who specialised working with gold

@hotstepper887 Год назад

I believe we've still many various cultures yet to be discovered throughout the world. We know the human mind is highly inquisitive, so the chances of cultures forming in many places from hunter gathers to a collective people seems more likely than various tribes merely slaying each other, but rather learning and sharing what they knew with each other. We always want to learn before anything else. It's what makes us unique.

@stanimirnedelchev2999 Год назад

This is what makes archaeology and History so interesting:)

@kdegraa Год назад

There is a fair chance most of the earliest sites of human civilisation are currently underwater. If either archeologists work out ways to study underwater sites or sea levels recede we might find out civilisation began long before the Sumerian’s built cities in Iraq. Maybe the Sumerian’s ancestors built a civilisation in what is now the Persian Gulf.

@uranusismightybig5111 Год назад

Great vid as usual👍 You have a pleasant talkingvoice and a good way of describing things that makes it easy to follow you to a different time and place, exellent!

@anonymousanonymous4690 Год назад

When I die bury me in a ochre stained kurgan

@jillianwarriner8730 Год назад

I always get excited when you publish a new video. Watching your videos has opened a whole new world of fascinating history for me. I fell in love with Viking culture and religion because it so obviously pointed to a meeting of two different cultures at some point in the past with the two groups of gods. I had no idea about comparative mythologies, so its been a delightful rabbit hole since then. I've been trying to find information from earlier cultures, but a majority of ancient civilization studies and videos are focused on Mesopotamian and Indus valley cultures. And now you've unlocked new search terms for me to research like 'old Europe'. I would love a deep dive into the goddess worship cultures of pre-indo european religions and any comparative mythology work has or can be done to trace goddess worship amongst different cultures and a general overview of what we know from each region about religious practices before the indo european influence takes over. Thank you so much. Your videos are excellent and I am excited to get copies of your books because if your presentation of history is this good, your novels must be amazing.

@jasondashney Год назад

I had to go down a Google rabbit hole because I thought you couldn't possibly have been right about the weight. 3000 pieces made from 6 kg? That means they average 2 g each, and many of them are much larger than that which means many of them are much smaller than that. I was blown away by how little that was. If someone told me they found 3000 artefacts made of an extremely heavy metal, I would guess that I would not be able to lift all of it with one finger. A 7cm cube. A cube of gold where each side is only 7 cm long weighs 6 kg.

@teachermikmichael27 Год назад

It would be great to have a video dedicated to mapping the succession of all the cultures over the centuries

@clintonlemoine986 Год назад

Whenever I see you have a new video I watch, immediately. Great job. Always fascinating and you do a great job keeping my attention through the whole video. Usually sad when they end.

@shurkanatashka7798 10 месяцев назад

May be those people were pre scithians, with gold cult and speeking vedas, drawing simbolic without writing?

@huskytail Год назад

It is always so interesting to me to see how the Old Europe might have influenced the Steppe cultures and it looks like they always return there. I wonder if what's suggested that the Steppe people didn't retain some mythology about those places beyond the big rivers and by the Black sea. At some point you can literally see all the Bulgarias (Old Great Bulgaria, Volga Bulgaria and Danube Bulgaria) in the three cultures depicted in the maps at 18:35 and 18:44 . It's just some speculation but that's what I love about this time of West Eurasian history, there's something JUST beyond our grasp and we need to work more to discover it (if possible)

@ixoraroxi Год назад

As a Bulgarian myself I can see the 3 Bulgarias as well. Not many people know about Bulgaria and its history. Thanks for pointing that 👍

@bc7138 Год назад

Another fascinating video! I think the Varna pottery has similar open ended curves and swirls to those of the La Tène period of the Iron Age. Obviously there's no connection as they were geographically and temporally so distant from each other, but I suppose that artistic styles and motifs are re-invented all the time.

@GreenTimeEagle Год назад

I'm a strong believer in the interconnectedness of ancient cultures. For instance, the imperial Japanese symbol of the chrysanthemum can be found inscribed on various ancient cultures' ruins. One example is Egypt. Very mysterious

@Techno_Idioto 10 месяцев назад

@@GreenTimeEagle Or it's just because flower look pretty.

@GreenTimeEagle 10 месяцев назад

@@Techno_Idioto Sure… the chrysanthemum symbol being quite specific and replicated onto various structure gives a strong possibility of a connection. The theory is that there was a global network in the ancient past. Difficult to properly prove, of course, as too many cataclysms happened to erase any potential evidence of such a network.

@sirwaldo999 Год назад

This reminded me of the goldwork done by the Etruscans

@mihaiilie8808 6 месяцев назад

Because the etruscans are thracian too ( celts basically).

@speakupriseup4549 Год назад

I absolutely love this channel, you bring fascinating stories of the ancient past back to life. Great job.

@jessamyers8761 Год назад

Wow this video was so amazing!!!! Thank you for sharing this most unique history. These people were amazing and just think of all we don't know about them. There is so much lost history.

@akaking7499 Год назад

Fascinating! It is interesting to think about the General black sea cultures and how they interacted. In South Caucasus the culture of metalurgy and Smith priests is quite evolved as well, one could imagine an interconnected civilization around the black sea coasts, trading and raiding.

@donbrown2391 Год назад

Most excellent. I would love to see you do a piece on Richard Bulliet's work on the invention of the wheel by the copper miners of the Carpathian mountains and it's development into the mobile homes of the nomadic peoples in the steppes. With great graphics of course :)

@Boric78 Год назад

Great Sunday evening just took an upturn. Think I shall enjoy this.

@thefisherking78 Год назад

Thanks for reminding me to buy more of your books. I love your work man, it's truly inspiring.

@ChristophersMum Год назад

Thank you so much for this video...these ''Old European'' cultures are something that I know very little of... Subscribed and hit the bell for All...Greetings from Scotland😁

@picklethepirate Год назад

Great video. Always enjoy learning about ancient peoples. Thanks for your research and hard work!

@coryfice1881 Год назад

You should talk about the Xiaohe Cemetery. It's a fascinatingly story of migration and not many people are talking about it. Not to mention the mummies are among the most well preserved and they had great hats.

@kevin6293 Год назад

Ochre can be used as a preservative and insect repellent, which might explain why they used it in burials.

@nickharmer3049 Год назад

Brilliant. I knew absolutely nothing about the Varna ,before now. Much appreciated. Bless up 👊

@josipbroztito204 Год назад

My belief is the golden face mask such as the one worn by schlemans agamemnom are first used in varna than make there way Down to mycenea

@neutralfellow9736 Год назад

interesting stuff, wonder how much more could be discovered what is not underwater beneath the Black Sea

@YamiKisara Год назад

Everything that would make a dent in the current historic timeline dogma would be kept secret and those few Eastern European (particularly Russian) scientists willing to talk about it would be dismissed as propagandistic nonsense anyway, so you wouldn't learn much, aside from maybe a few completely misinterpreted artefacts.

@HAYAOLEONE Год назад

A movie was made a few years back about gold and water and the Black Sea. 'Black Sea' is the international title IIRC. 'Young Pope' Jude Law is in it. Good movie.

@Shineon83 Год назад

The sophistication of the jewelry design is truly stunning-and so advanced……I believe we have only scratched the surface of these remarkable people….

@claudioprado2743 Год назад

Thanks for the excelent job. Your almost always introduce history subjets that are not very known but really interesting!!!

@borislavandreev196 Год назад

I'm glad people like you are showing videos like this , Europe had their civilization way before Egypt and Mesopotamia, all serious historians know that when Greeks steped foot on the European continent coming from North Africa were amazed by the culture of the balkans and they were stealing a lot from their northern neighbors the tracians . To bad we still live in time of ancient civilization dogma of Egypt , Greece and Mesopotamia. Thanks again

@borislavandreev196 Год назад

@Sao Ham ?

@Shoshana-xh6hc Год назад

Fantastic, thank you so much for posting! Never knew about this culture 😄💕

@kevinquist Год назад

Amazing level of detail you cram into such a short video is impressive and is greatly respected. Refreshing to see such valuable information in our pop world that completely devoid of real facts. Our world almost seems repulsed by intelligence.

@Boric78 Год назад

Really good, very fascinating - as always.

@RollingThunderModels Год назад

Thank you for another great upload!

@theicepickthatkilledtrotsk658 Год назад

I really like your bronze age videos. I was meaning to ask you if you are familiar with the Varna Culture and Today when I returned home I see you uploaded this gem. Nice.

@MrThebarron007 Год назад

this instantly makes me think of alantis and linear A

@user-ri1ti6go7s Месяц назад

I saw the display of Varna gold at Canbridge and the skills used in making. Designing these amazing objects was totally wow! These were an amazing people and culture thank you for the video presentation about them and helping people be aware of history

@nickbarton6022 Год назад

Brilliant Dan, as usual 👏😊

@admiralsquatbar127 Год назад

It's always a good day when Dan turns up, armed with another video.

@yojoe5311 Год назад

Fascinating. Great video thanks for making it.

@zeroinsight8566 Год назад

Love your videos. After watching them for awhile I finally went and got your book Godborn. Great listen man keep up the great work!

@ThirtySixOz Год назад

So you telling me all those memes about bulgaria being a first civilization are real?

@pavelivanov2064 4 месяца назад

Slowly going there, huh? Never seen there are jokes about this serious topic. It is alright, though. In time the facts shows up 😊. Greetings!

@ThirtySixOz 4 месяца назад

@@pavelivanov2064 hahah yeah indeed

@thepharaohnerd7235 Год назад

Thanks for the great video! These lesser known archaeological cultures you bring into the spotlight are incredible.

@Jakez408 3 часа назад

The beginning of Varna dates back to 6000 BC, The Varna Archaeological Museum in my opinion is the most interesting museum in the world. The city once stood there when the Black Sea was just a small lake thus predating all other ancient civilisations.