The Panagyurishte gold treasure (Bulgarian: Панагюрско златно съкровище) is a Thracian treasure excavated in Bulgaria. It was excavated by Bulgarians in the 20th century near the town of Panagyurishte in the Pazardzhik Province. It consists of a phial, an amphora and seven rhytons with total weight of 6,164 kg of pure gold. All of the objects are richly decorated with scenes of the Thracian myths, customs and life. It is dated from the 4th-3th centuries BC. It is kept in the Plovdiv Archaeological Museum, if not in a temporary exhibition in the country or abroad.

The Preslav Literary School (Pliska Literary School) was the first literary school in the medieval Bulgarian Empire. It was established by Boris I in 885 or 886 in Bulgaria’s capital, Pliska. In 893, Simeon I moved the seat of the school from Pliska to the new capital, Preslav.

The Preslav Literary School was the most important literary and cultural centre of Bulgaria and all Slavs until the capture and burning of Preslav by the Byzantine Emperor John I Tzimisces in 972. A number of prominent Bulgarian writers and scholars worked at the school, including Naum of Preslav (until 893), Constantine of Preslav, John Exarch, Chernorizets Hrabar, etc.

The school was also a centre of translation, mostly of Byzantine authors, as well as of poetry, painting and painted ceramics. The school is likely to have had a key role for the development of the Cyrillic alphabet, as the earliest Cyrillic inscriptions have been found in the area of Preslav (see also Cyrillic alphabet).

Preslav School scriptoria were scattered over much of present-day northeastern Bulgaria, including monasteries at Pliska, Patleina, Khan Krum, Chernoglavtsi (present-day Shumen Province), Ravna, Varna (present-day Varna Province), and Murfatlar in Dobruja (now in Romania).

The painting of the Tarnovo Artistic School was the mainstream of the Bulgarian fine arts between 13th and 14th centuries named after the capital and the main cultural center of the Second Bulgarian Empire, Tarnovo. Although it was influenced by some tendencies of the Palaeogan Renaissance in the Byzantine Empire, the Tarnovo painting had its own unique features which makes it a separate Artistic School. Depending on whether it was mural decoration of the churches or easel painting it could be divided into two types: Mural painting and Iconography. Little remains of mosaics were found during archaeological excavation which shows that this technique was rarely used in the Bulgarian Empire. The works of that school have some extent of realism, portrait individualism and psychology.
Mural painting
For the first time in Eastern Europe the Tempera method became wide-spread in the murals of the Tarnovo School of Art. That technique allowed the work to proceed slower than the fresco method as well brighter and more saturated colouring and had potential for more additional colours. The fresco technique continued to be used, for instance in the beautiful frescoes of the Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo and the chapel of the Hrelyo Tower in the Rila Monastery.

During the Second Empire the murals on the church walls closely encompassed every part of the surface: walls, vaults, columns, wall piers, arches, apses. Their positioning was in horizontal layers according to the church canon.

On the first layer were depicted saints who were usually stepped on a high painted plinth, which is one of the characteristic features of the School. Its lines imitated the panel plates of coloured marble. The selection of saints depended on the preferences of the ktitors or on the general theme of the frescoes. Typical feature of the Tarnovo Artistic School are the numerous depictions of warrior-saints. For instance, in the Boyana Church there are ten warrior-saints. Widely spread was the image St Demetrius of Salonica, the patron saint of the Asen dynasty, who was particularly popular in Bulgaria in 13th and 14th centuries. The ktitors were depicted in the narthex of the churches. Portraits of many noble Bulgarians from the Middle Ages have survived throughout the centuries due to that practice. In the Boyana Church are preserved the images of Emperor Constantine Tikh Asen, his wife Irina, sevastokrator Kaloyan and his wife Desislava. Тhere is a beautiful fresco of Emperor Ivan Alexander in the ossuary of the Bachkovo Monastery and in the church of Dolna Kamenitsa there are eleven images: despot Michael (son of Michael Shishman) his wife an unknown noble holding a model of the church; his wife and children and two clerics. Images of warrior saints and ktitors were common in the preserved detailed mural paintings on the foundations of the churches in Trapezitsa. These paintings are featured with mild tones and a sense of realism in the rendered portraits and cloths. One of the churches in Trapeztisa was covered with mosaics. Тhe palace church also had some mosaic decoration.

The unique and realistic portraits in the Boyana Church are considered to be forerunners of the Renaissance. The wall piers and the arches were often decorated with medallion-shaped bust images of saints. Magnificent examples of those can be observed in SS Peter and Paul Church in Tarnovo. Along with the traditional scenes such as “Christ’s passions” and “Feast cycle” in the second layer; “Christ Pantokrator” in the dome and the Madonna with the infant Christ in the apse, there were also specific images and scenes. In the narthex of the SS. Forty Martyrs Church in Tarnovo there were frescoes of St Anna nursing the infant Mary and St Elisabeth nursing the infant John the Baptist, unfortunately the last one did not survive. The iconographic type Galaktotrophousa was a predecessor of the widely-spread images of Madonna with the infant Christ in Western Europe. Although it was canonical, that scene was rarely used in the Byzantine Iconography. In the 35 calendar scenes from the same church some of the characters were painted with contemporary garments. The large number of images of Jesus Christ in the Boyana Church makes an impression: Pantokrator (All-powerful); Emmanuel (Young man); Evergetes (Blessing); Mandilion; Keramidion and the unique image Christ Ancient of Days in which He is depicted as a white-bearded Old man.

Thеre are original themes in the Transfiguration of God Chapel in the Hrelyo Tower situated in the Rila Monastery. In the dome is depicted the composition Sophia-Great Wisdom of God and in the narthex Psalms of David. The scenes Musicians and Horo are especially interesting because they represent the cloths and the way of living of the Bulgarians during the 14th century.There are scenes of Saint Ivan of Rila life. Although there are relatively few preserved monuments of the Tarnovo School of Painting, they refute the popular opinion that the religious murals are inveterate and that they are inappropriate for artistic imagination.

The archaeological research shows that some public edifices and the palaces were also richly decorated with mural paintings but unfortunately the few remaining fragments are not enough for the themes to be determined. The fragments of richly dressed men were discovered in the throne hall which suggests that probably the hall was decorated with the depictions of the Bulgarian Emperors and Empresses.

Seven Bulgarian wonders are part of the list of UNESCO’s Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. Two more wonders are natural sights.

The cultural pearls that lead the Bulgarian wonders are:

~ The Rila Monastery- part of the convention since 1983, it is the largest and most famous Eastern Orthodox monastery in Bulgaria, situated in the North-Western Rila Mountain (117 km South of Sofia).

~ The Boyana Church- in the list since 1979, it is a medieval Bulgarian Orthodox church originally constructed in the late 10th or early 11th century, located in the outskirts of Sofia city, in the Boyana quarter.

~ The Madara Rider (or Madara Horserider) – part of UNESCO World heritage list since 1979, it is an early medieval large rock relief situated Eastern of the city of Shumen (Northeastern Bulgaria), near the village of Madara.

~ The Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak- it is protected since 1979, it presents a vaulted brickwork “beehive” tomb, part of a large Thracian necropolis, situated near the town of Kazanlak in central Bulgaria.

~ The Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo – part of UNESCO list from 1979, group of monolithic churches, chapels and monasteries hewn out of solid rock and completely different from other monastery complexes in Bulgaria, it is located 20 km South of the Danube river side town of Rousse, near the village of Ivanovo.

~ The Ancient Town of Nesebar – protected cultural area since 1983, it is an ancient city on the Black Sea coast, located in Nesebar municipality, Bourgas province.

~ The Thracian Tomb of Sveshtari – it is in the list since 1985, the tomb is situated 2,5 km South-West of the village of Sveshtari, Razgrad province, which is 42 km North-East of the city of Razgrad (Northeastern Bulgaria).

~ The Pirin National Park – world heritage since 1983, the park encompasses the larger part of the Pirin Mountains, including two nature reserves (Southwestern Bulgaria).

~ The Srebarna Nature Reserve – considered as world heritage from 1983, it is a natural reserve, situated 18 km West of the riverside of Silistra town and 2 km South of the Danube River (Northeastern Bulgaria), the reserve is located on the Via Pontica – a bird migration route between Europe and Africa.

The Convention concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage was adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO on 16 November 1972.

By regarding heritage as both cultural and natural, the Convention reminds us of the ways in which people interact with nature, and of the fundamental need to preserve the balance between the two.

The convention has been ratified by 182 countries. Until the end of 2006 in its list are included 830 objects: 644 cultural, 162 natural and 24 mixed, all situated in 138 countries.

source: news.bg