The Knowledge of the Most Ancient Civilization:

An Exhibition Dedicated to the Achievements of the Chalcolithic Civilization in Bulgaria

This announcement was published on the website of the Credo Bonum Gallery   

Just days before the annual celebration of the Bulgarian script and culture, the Credo Bonum Foundation will present in its gallery an intriguing exhibition that has the noble purpose of shaking up the inertia of our daily thinking. The space will put on view signal archaeological discoveries in the world of the oldest human civilization, which was born more than eight millennia ago in the Black Sea area and the Lower Danube. Decades after their discovery, still visible artefacts and finds stored at various museums remain an inexhaustible source of knowledge about the spirit and life of our ancestors.

The exhibits include researchers’ data about this civilization, which developed, among other achievements, the oldest agriculture in Europe, the world’s earliest metallurgy of gold and copper, Europe’s earliest salt-producing industry and the earliest production and processing of semiprecious minerals. The gallery’s space will feature examples of the earliest proto-urban centres with developed residential and public architecture, of the complex system of burial practices, of crystallized concepts for and beliefs in the real world and the hereafter connected to the myth for the Great Goddess-Mother. The finds, of high aesthetic and symbolic value, are evidence for high knowledge and skills such as the first measurement standards or images of human faces with unequivocally individual features, which have been accepted as the earliest portraits of man as an individual.

Among the most curious finds from this civilization is their script, which predates by some 2,000 years all other writing systems and is characterized by a high level of logical and abstract thought, and a geometric approach in the expression of thoughts. Among the other surprising discoveries are high mathematical and astronomical knowledge, the use of numerical, angular and linear metrics, as well as one for harmonic correspondence.   

The show will strive to pose the question if the dawn of human knowledge has a connection with Europe’s Southeast and what happened to that civilization by showing possible answers in the research conducted in the Black Sea and inland. Monuments discovered by the Bulgarian researchers and turned into world problematic offer a voyage to a lost civilisation that stirs the mind of modern man. The exhibition will seek to send a message that we need to learn about and preserve these traces for future trips of the thought. In the frame the show, on June 5th, 6:00 pm at Credo Bonum Gallery will be held a discussion on the preservation of the cultural heritage as well as spirituality in the light of the questions of national identity.   

The exhibition was made possible by the kind cooperation of the regional museums of history of the towns Varna, Vratsa and Dobrich. Consultant of the exhibition is Prof. Diana Gergova from the Institute of Archaeology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. 

The team at Credo Bonum Foundation expresses its gratitude for the invaluable assistance in the realization of the exhibition to Diana Gergova, Georgi Ganetsovski, Todor Dimov, Olga Pelevina, Hristo Smolenov, Petko Dimitrov, Ruslan Kostov, Dilyan Bakalski and Vassil Yovchev.