Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T11:29:14.276Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Varna and the social context of early metallurgy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Colin Renfrew
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The discovery of what is demonstrably, on the basis of present knowledge, the earliest major assemblage of gold artifacts to be unearthed anywhere in the world is an event of some note, comparable in significance with Schliemann's find of the Great Treasure at Troy more than a century ago. The finds at Varna must be at least 1,500 years older than those of Troy 11, yet apart from the original announcement by their excavator (Ivanov, 1975), and useful, although brief, descriptions by Gimbutas (1977 a and b), the Varna cemetery has so far excited little archaeological comment. The publication by Ivanov (1978) of the first well-illustrated account of the cemetery allows an assessment of its importance. Its status as the oldest substantial find of gold emphasizes the position of south-east Europe as an early and independent centre of metallurgical innovation. But the gold is only one of several materials indicative of high status in the cemetery: what had hitherto seemed a moderately egalitarian society now displays clear evidence of salient ranking. This in turn has major implications for our understanding of the social context in which early metalworking in Europe developed and prospered.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 52 , Issue 206 , November 1978 , pp. 199 - 203
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1978

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Angelov, N. 1959. Le trésor en or de Hotnica, Archaeologiya, I, 38-46 (Sofia).Google Scholar
Baumgartel, E. J. 1960. The cultures of prehistoric Egypt, II (Oxford, Griffith Institute).Google Scholar
Chernykh, E. N. 1975- Aibunar: a Balkan copper mine of the fourth millennium BC, Sovietskdya Archeologija, 4, 132-53 Google Scholar
Chernykh, E. N. 1976. Metallurgische Bereiche des 4.-2. Jahrtausend v. Chr. in der UDSSR, Paper presented to the IX Congress of Prehistory and Protohistory, Nice. Google Scholar
Clark, R. M. 1975. A calibration curve for radiocarbon dates, Antiquity , XXXIX, 251-66.Google Scholar
Dumitrescu, H. 1961. Connections between the Cucu- teni-Tripolje cultural complex and the neigh-bouring cultures in the light of the utilisation of gold pendants, Dacia, 5, 69-93.Google Scholar
Evans, R. K. 1973, Craft specialisation in the chalcolithic period of the Eastern portion of the Balkan Peninsula (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles).Google Scholar
Georgiev, G. I. 1961. Kulturgruppen der Jungstein- und der Kupferzeit in der Ebene von Thrazien (Südbulgarien), in (eds.), Bohm, J. Laet, S. J. De, L’Europe à la fin de l’âge de la pierre (Prague), 45-100.Google Scholar
Gimbutas, M. 1977a. Gold treasure at Varna, Archaeology, XXX, 44-51.Google Scholar
Gimbutas, M. 1977b. Varna: a sensationally rich cemetery of the Karanovo civilization, Expedition, 19 (4), 39-47.Google Scholar
Iovanovic, B. Ottaway, B. S., 1976. Copper mining and metallurgy in the Vinia group, Antiquity, L, 104-13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ivanov, I. S. 1975. Raskopki na Varnenskija eneoliten nekropol prez 1972 g., Izvestija na Narodnija Muzeji Varna (Bulletin du Musée National de Varna), XI, 1-16.Google Scholar
Ivanov, I. S. 1978. Sukrovishtata na Varnenskiya Chalkoliten Nekropol (Treasures of the Varna chalcolithic necropolis), Sofia, ‘September’. (Text in Bul-garian with translation into Russian, English and German.) Google Scholar
Makkay, J. 1976. Problems concerning Copper Age chronology in the Carpathian basin, Acta Archaeo- logica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 28, 251-300.Google Scholar
Mikov, V. 1958. Zlatnoto Sukrovishte ot Vulchitran (Le trésor d’or de Valcitran), Sophia, Académie des Sciences.Google Scholar
Muhly, J. D. 1977. The copper ox-hide ingots and the bronze age metals trade, Iraq, XXXIX, 73-82.Google Scholar
Oates, J. 1972. A radiocarbon date from Choga Mami, Iraq, XXXIV, 49-53.Google Scholar
Parović-Pešikan, M. Trbuhović, V.. 1971. Isko- pavania tumula ranog bronzanog doba u Tivatskom poliu, Starmar, 22, 129-41.Google Scholar
Peebles, C. S. Kus., S. M. 1977. Some archaeological correlates of ranked societies, American Antiquity, XLII, 421-48.Google Scholar
Popescu, D. Popescu., V. 1955. Asupra tezearului de aur de la Ostrovul Mare, Studii si Cercetàri de Istorie Veche, 4, 865-80.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C. 1969. The autonomy of the south-east European copper age, Proc. Prehist. Soc., XXXVI, 12-47.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C. 1971. Sitagroi, radiocarbon and the prehistory of south-east Europe, Antiquity, XLV, 275-82.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C. 1973. Monuments, mobilisation and social organi-sation in neolithic Wessex, in (ed.), Renfrew, C., The explanation of culture change (London), 539-58.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C. 1978. The anatomy of innovation, in (eds.), Green, D. Haselgrove, C. C. Spriggs, M. J. T., Social organisation and settlement (British Archaeological Reports, Series International), 47, 89-117.Google Scholar
Shackleton, N. Renfrew., C. 1970. Neolithic trade routes realigned by oxygen isotope analyses, Nature, 228, 1062-5.Google Scholar
Tobler, A. J. 1950. Excavations at Tepe Gaiora, II (Philadelphia).Google Scholar
Tsountas, C. 1908. Ai Proistorihai Akropoleis Dhiminiou kai Sesklou (Athens).Google Scholar
Woolley, C. L. 1931. Excavations at Ur, 1930-1, Antiq. J., XI, 343-81.Google Scholar